He Wanted to Stay, But He Just Didn’t Know How
By: Rebecca Good

After our 36-year-old son completed suicide in October 2021, my husband Tom and I were fortunate to have found the Grief & Loss Center as quickly as we did. Within a week, we were referred to the Center and had a two-hour session with Laurie Taylor. Within two weeks of Austin’s passing, we were participating on the monthly Zoom support group for parents of suicides. 

The information Laurie imparted to us was life-changing. Tom and I are both instrumental grievers, processing our sudden loss primarily through inward reflection and analysis, and less through feelings. Laurie was able to meet our needs and fill us with relevant information so we were able to start processing what happened and to help us to begin to make sense of the huge question - “WHY?!”.  

New understandings included new vocabulary: perseveration, anhedonia, catastrophizing, the brain’s executive cortex, among other terms.

It also included lots of new learning about suicide:

• Their last act doesn’t define our child.

• Austin was not the suicide - that was the mental illness.

• Depression overpowered him until he grew too tired to fight.

• He was murdered by depression and anxiety.

• And our favorite: He wanted to stay, but he just didn’t know how…

My life mission has changed since Austin’s death. As a 36-year educator, I have made it my work to take Laurie‘s transformational information and put it in others’ hands. People have told us that because of hearing this educational information from us, they have been encouraged to seek counseling instead of suicide.

I have shared the notes from that initial Laurie Taylor meeting with many people. I used them at Austin‘s service and people thanked me afterwards for helping them with understanding the “why”. Austin was handsome, charismatic, super-intelligent and extremely successful in his commercial real estate business. People needed help in understanding the mental illness we were all too late in recognizing that would lead Austin to do what he did when he appeared to “have it all”.

These same learnings have been shared by me in a homily at church. And I have become a go-to person for friends and loved ones who have others in their lives who are starting to show some of the same symptoms as Austin.

GLC’s monthly parent support group sessions are a big priority for both of us, and they are very helpful in sustaining us on our grief journey. Hearing from other parents who are ahead of us in the grieving process is particularly supportive. As Tom listens to others share their grief journey, he finds it especially helpful to see that what he’s feeling personally is not unexpected and is normal. He finds comfort in that. And as active members of the group, we know that we are also helping those who are new to their sudden unexplainable loss. 

All of this remarkably supportive service is provided at no cost by Laurie and her team, which we find incredible. We have become GLC monthly donors and recently donated to North Texas Giving Day, the annual fundraising emphasis. I have also shared information about the Grief & Loss Center with others, encouraging them to give a little something so the Center can continue its amazing work in our community.

Life is a teacher. As a student of life, and as intentional acts of mourning to honor our beloved son Austin, I am using the life-changing information from the Grief & Loss Center to both help prevent future suicides and to help others make sense of the “why” for completed suicides.  

I find it somewhat frustrating that we happened upon the Grief & Loss Center, as opposed to it being put in our hands by first responders. I’m doing what I can to get the word out to organizations whose job it is to handle completed suicides. I hope some of you reading this feel compelled to do the same in your communities. 

Again, we express heart-felt thanks to the Grief & Loss Center for not only being there for us when Tom and I needed it most, but also for being there now, with the monthly support meetings and the very inspirational monthly newsletter. We are deeply grateful for the love and support and education we continue to receive.