Halloween night, 2016, just nine days before the US Presidential election, I was at my friend’s place for our regular Monday night viewing of my talk show. I don’t recall anything about the episode, but I do remember that afterward, we talked about my Halloween outing the prior Friday and then moved on to serious topics. My friend was faced with decisions about her future and I was providing a listening ear. I recall we both got teary-eyed at one point but that just capped a great meeting of friends.
“Eleven PM! Time to go. I have to check on Mom.” I was emotionally drained but left in a good space.
I arrived home and my first thought was, “I forgot to turn on the porch light again.” As my hand just touched our screen door handle, I heard a voice call out, “Donald!” I stopped in my tracks. The silence of midnight and the pitch-black darkness surrounding me again interrupted by, “Donald.” I don’t know why, but somehow I perceived turning back would be akin to Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt.
Yes, I was afraid to turn around. I wanted to run into the house where my Maurice, Mom, and our fur babies were. What I knew to be true and safe lived there. The unknown existed out here.
“Donald, it’s me.” Voice recognition kicked in: a dear friend, Bill. I was relieved as much as I could be. Yet instinctively I knew something was not right for my first words were, “Did something happen?”
“Lesleigh killed herself!”
I doubled over. Our best friend no longer existed.
“I was almost home when Matt called so I circled back. I wanted you to hear the news from a friend.”
“Thank you so much.”
Bill, Reverend Matt, and I—Lesleigh’s three amigos, eternal friends—having to receive and deliver gut-wrenching news. Her last message?
It was as if I were sane moments ago and everything I knew to be true meant nothing now. My reality tilted the wrong way on its axis and my mind was spinning.
“I have to tell Maurice,” I mumbled. We hugged goodbye.
As I stumbled into our house, Maurice jumped up. “What’s wrong?”
Words stammered out as I escaped to caretaker mode. “I have to check on Mom.”
Her dementia had debilitated her mind and body. Despite that, at the sight of me crying uncontrollably, she asked, “What’s wrong?” This woman who didn’t even recognize me as her son anymore, who spoke incoherently, asked me how I was! That gutted me further.
I haven’t a clue what happened next. My senses overloaded, drowning in a sea of flashbacks and tears, I shut down. I postponed my writing, appearances, even my talk show. Every moment of every experience with Lesleigh replayed on a non-stop reel interrupted by awareness bulletins: guilt, guilt, and more guilt. Angry with myself, suffocating in grief, intermittently, I would gasp for air.
Because of my own experience with depression, I understood wanting something to turn off, end the pain. Some people express feelings of anger at the person who takes their own life. I never felt that. Instead, I felt colossal, debilitating guilt, for Lesleigh had messaged me that very weekend asking for my number—even though it’s the same number I had had for over a decade.
Was that a clue?
I have read that email once after that night to see if there was tangible proof to the request’s urgency, but never since. Her request is seared into my memory, her email saved on my computer. I have every email she sent me since my last computer virus sixteen years ago. I can’t even read them let alone delete them because I’d feel like I’m erasing a part of her.
Some friends wondered why she hadn’t tried to contact them. I rationalized for them why she had reached out to a few of us. Another friend who is employed in the psychiatric field asked, did I realize how many people so much younger than Lesleigh had taken their lives?
Facts and statistics did not soothe me. They did not get me to move my thoughts above ground. I was just there beneath the surface with Lesleigh. I couldn’t snap out of it and my lack of sleep didn’t help. My mind played tricks on me. My own depression was seeping back even though I had been symptom-free for over two decades.
***
Meanwhile, Matt asked me if I wanted to speak at Lesleigh’s celebration of life “this Sunday.” Whether I was in shape to do this wasn’t a factor. Of course I would. Matt was the only person I read my eulogy to in advance. Listening, holding the parts of his body with stitches, he motioned for me to stop.
“Why?” I asked. “My eulogy, that bad?”
As he alternated between tears and laughter, he whispered, “No, I’m in so much pain. Don’t change a word.”
I didn’t.
Heading out, Maurice said, “Just don’t cry when you are delivering the eulogy!” Of course, he knew I would. The joys of living with a critic. Lesleigh would appreciate the irony.
***
I loved Lesleigh Turner. Sorry, Maurice. Odd to anyone but us then that we, as actors, were once cast as each other’s love interest. I had to act that I was in love with her but I wasn’t acting. She made me feel like the “straight man” in our relationship.
I always say my life is a sitcom. Seinfeld. I’m always Elaine except with Lesleigh, she was Elaine and I was Jerry! How do I go on without one of the major recurring characters? It’s never going to be the same show.
One of the last times we saw each other, she hugged me—of course. I’m not a hugger, so I gave her the light touchback. She wouldn’t let go and I light touched some more and gave it my all—two fingers—then she licked my face.
Imagine if I had really hugged her.
When I close my eyes I see Lesleigh—basking in the love of all of you—and at the same time drowning in love.
Next time I see you, Lesleigh, I’ll be hugging you and not letting go.
Lesleigh’s family and friends looked on and listened, laughed and cried. The ability to make someone laugh and/or cry is the oddest gift. Lesleigh had it to the Nth degree.
I walked out without saying goodbyes.
***
Somehow putting words to memories and feelings created some much-needed relief. Lesleigh was the first human I ever was close to who passed away. She got in. I let her in and this hurt like hell. But knowledge is empowering. So is self-awareness.
Lesleigh had chronic, lifelong depression. We both had crosses to bear but we never competed with stories. We just knew without having to talk about it. I remember we were in a play together in 2002 and we were sitting beside each other during rehearsal and a young, cheerful member of the company said to both of us, “Happy Father’s Day.” I thought, how nice that the boy has a good father, but Lesleigh immediately left the space. She literally was gone thinking of her father who had taken his own life. To prevent the young man from asking us a followup question, such as, what we are doing for our fathers on Father’s Day, I pretended I need his help on the set.
Lesleigh and I never discussed that moment. We talked about so much, open and honestly: men, family, faith, life, you name it. But I don’t recall us ever communicating our experiences with depression.
Another clue?
We were both considered upbeat, positive people. We hid our feelings well, even from each other.
Soon after Maurice asked me to search for an item in my self-hoarding spare room. I found a printed email from another of our mutual friends dated 2002 that I had absolutely no recollection of:
Dear Donald,
I’m a little worried about Lesleigh. Did you know she was suicidally depressed about three years ago? I haven’t heard much from her lately and she missed a lunch date with me today.
Has she been less communicative with you? Has she been busier and busier, cherries, and cheerier? They are pretty good warning signs from her last episode. I called her and pestered her until she made a date with me today but then she didn’t show. Her job is incredibly stressful.
I know you’re close to her and probably see more of her than I do. Do you think she’s okay? Can you broach the subject with her? I’d appreciate you keeping tabs on her because she’s very good at hiding when she’s depressed. Thanks
The final clue.
My friend’s death changed me. In my darkest hour, I confess I did think of joining her. But I discovered I really did like being alive. Sometimes that means swimming with sharks: some phantom, others human.
I can’t think of a more beloved person in my world. I wish Lesleigh had been less loved if that meant she could be alive.
I’m much more honest about my experiences with depression, who I really am. I’ve even made a verbal pact with a small circle of friends: no matter what we feel, we can tell each other and it will not be judged. We are lucky. We have each other. So many don’t. No matter what you are feeling, know that you are not alone and there is someone who you can talk and will provide help.
Watching the election coverage just two days after I delivered Lesleigh’s eulogy, my years-long obsession with who would win seemed relatively unimportant. My only thought was, I would have done anything to get my friend back.
The twisted part of me wondered, would I have campaigned for Trump instead of Hillary if it would have changed the course of personal history?
Even Lesleigh would have appreciated that.
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In the United States: Suicide Prevention Lifelines are available 24/7 – so make use of them if your loved one needs to talk with someone urgently. Call National Hope Helpline at 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) or the National SuicidePrevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) or in Spanish, 1-888-628-9454.
In Canada: National Suicide Prevention Support line
1.833.456.4566 / www.crisisservicescanada.ca
Quebec Residents: 1.866.277.3553
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Photo credits: the author