Bisexual people suffer depression and suicide at a rate greater than straight people or even their other LGBT counterparts. Here is one beautiful man’s story.
—
Early Sunday morning and the horrific news is still fresh, just two hours old, its newness clashing with a storm of emotions that cut like a knife and only beginning to take form and becoming all-consuming. Jonah – not his real name – 37 years old and who survived 9/11 but was left indelibly scarred and damaged by the rejection of a mother described by relatives as “evil” because of her reaction to her child’s bisexuality, took a gun and ended the long agony of his brief life.
Hearing the news, first you shake. Then you feel the sting of tears in your eyes and, at the same time, the strength of an unseen mega force that punches the gut so powerfully that breathing and feeling are impossible. Your plans for the day that is just beginning are suddenly unimportant, trivial, meaningless.
And then, the cruelest of all: the guilt. You understand there is truth that those left when a cherished loved one commits suicide ask what they could have done to stop it. Nothing, most therapists or experts in human behavior might say. No much comfort when you remember your treasured friend’s last message less than two days earlier when he hinted that he needed time to himself and left your life with the words “I love you, Chris.”
Guilt, loss, grief and any other feelings that come with them can be especially acute for the friend whose own life is littered with multiple losses. They’re also poisonous to the friend who is a recovering alcoholic and who, despite years of sobriety, desperately wants “something” to take away the overwhelming hurt even for a few hours.
But maybe the years of therapy, reading recovery literature, or the recovery program’s “higher power” rise above the feelings and you tell yourself that seeking comfort from Jack Daniels would disrespect and offend the memory, the integrity of a friend’s life that was lived far too long in the shadows of permanent and indelible trauma and agony. Despite that – maybe in spite of it – Jonah, although he never quite believed or accepted it, was one of the strongest men and highest examples of a man who enriched the lives of literally everyone he met.
Jonah was a freelance writer and published author and had been forever scarred by his mother’s rejection because of his sexuality when he was in the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He apparently had a meeting with a publisher when the first plane hit the tower and, in what Jonah later wrote privately was God at work and not his own strength and courage, he found his way to a collapsed staircase and made it out alive. Somewhere along the way, Jonah came across a woman who he helped down 70-some floors of darkened and collapsed stairwells to safety. He said he never knew her name, but she’s alive today – the date of her rescuer’s death.
But Jonah suffered major injuries that he never fully discussed. A sister confided that Jonah was in a wheelchair for more than a year and had to endure a daily routine of psychiatric medications and regular counseling sessions. Like Jonah, his sister was guarded against disclosing what their mother’s issue was with Jonah although she hinted at their mother’s disapproval of Jonah’s sexuality.
Jonah’s sister, protective of her brother, loved him deeply and always respected his right to share private details of his life with whomever he chose. Jonah did share, however, that one of his life’s hardest hurts was that his mother, aware years ago that she was dying, ordered from her deathbed that her son not be allowed at her funeral. Jonah respected his mother’s final wish. He was forever hurt nonetheless, and his pain was not lessened with the fact that his mother’s rejection and final wish were her doing, not his.
Jonah suffered frequent panic attacks since 9/11, and they apparently became more frequent more than a month ago when his father suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. Jonah and his brothers and sisters gathered for a vigil at their father’s bedside and were expecting the worst as his blood pressure dropped steadily and showed little promise of recovery. But unexpectedly, after a month in a coma, Jonah’s father woke up and the hope for recovery was kindled. Then, as unexpectedly, Jonah’s father died just last week and Jonah, already overwhelmed by his responsibilities to his writing and away from the safety of his own home, was put in charge of his family’s business.
That Jonah was put in charge apparently was vehemently opposed by his father’s brothers. Details are guarded, but Jonah’s uncles apparently had a huge problem with their family’s business being run by someone other than a heterosexual man. There are hints of a gay-bashing family argument from which Jonah simply walked away and went into another room of his father’s house.
The riveting shatter of a gun being fired was heard moments later.
As of Jonah’s uncles, there is little room for compassion and the hope that a special place in hell is reserved for them.
Seven hours later and three hours after Jonah’s friend was informed of his death, only now the tears begin. They’re uncontrollable, unstoppable. But they need to be cried. Jonah was and is worth them. The tears will be cried until I’ve cried the blue out of my eyes. And everything else that comes later will be felt and dealt with in its own time.
But the tears are bittersweet, their grief strangely comforted by a sudden realization: my friend, Jonah, was the strongest and most courageous man ever to enter my life, although for far too brief a time. I admired and respected him like few other men, if any, in my life. I loved him deeply.
In our countless private messages, I called Jonah “my Angel Boy.”
Today, my angel boy got hit wings.
If you’re dealing with feelings of hopelessness or thoughts of suicide, help is available. 800-273-TALK (8255) is on-call 24/7 if you need to talk, or reach out to a friend or health professional in your life.
Photo: Flickr/Damien Cugley