The Day

Trigger Warning: difficult content, discussion of suicide

We were somewhat prepared for the possibility that he would do it again and be successful. His first serious attempt took him to the hospital and into the highest levels of treatment at the St. Vincent Stress Center. We knew it was now part of his history and that he would always be higher risk, and somewhere in the shadows of our mind, when we dared to go there, we worried about that dreaded day.

We tried to avoid it, tried to protect him every day since the day we realized this was real and not some teenage phase. Depression is nothing to take lightly, and suicidal depression is the scariest thing to see a loved one go through. In some ways, we lost Luke weeks before he actually died. But with treatment and professional intervention, we saw a lot of improvement and it gave us hope. 

Monday November 18, 2019 was a typical day, as typical as our days were in the “new normal” that was our life. Luke had a therapy appointment that morning before school so I drove him there. At 17, he had his driver’s license and a car, but during this time he only had car privileges to drive to school and work. We were pretty strict about that for his own safety. He was very responsible about school and work, so those were places we trusted him to go. 

The therapy appointment was uneventful. The therapist said that Luke reported no suicidal feelings and felt he was safe. I agreed. We all felt good about how things were going. After the appointment, I took Luke home so he could then drive himself to school. He was planning to come home after school, do a little homework, grab a bite to eat, and then be at school again from 5-9pm for rehearsal for the school musical. He was in the pit orchestra and this was tech week.  

After I dropped Luke off at school, I decided to go for a run. I wasn’t in great shape, but it was a nice day and I had a doctor appointment, a check-up, later that morning and I wanted to feel honest when I lied and said I was exercising regularly. I’m kidding, mostly. But in all seriousness, another memory of that day is that I talked a lot about Luke at my doctor appointment and he was extremely sympathetic to our situation and expressed that the high school years are hard and college would surely be better for Luke. That was a comforting thought and I agreed.

Luke came home after school as expected and asked me if he could drive his car to tech rehearsal. I called Greg at work to ask what he thought. We hadn’t yet let him drive to anything other than school or work. This was part of the family contract we had to design as part of his therapy. The idea was to keep him safe while gradually earning privileges and trust back. He felt we were too strict with it and this was a typical case of him pushing back. Greg and I talked briefly and decided an activity at school was probably fine and we let him drive. 

Luke left for that rehearsal and that was the last time I saw him. I will forever regret and second-guess that decision to let him have the car that night. 

Greg got home from work and we had a nice, peaceful evening with our 2 younger children, Bryn and Ryan. We expected Luke a little after 9:00. When he didn’t show up and didn’t text, we didn’t panic right away. We felt unusually calm. We gave it a few minutes and decided to drive by the school to see if cars were still there. There were no cars in the parking lot. We figured he went to get food or something, and we talked about what the consequence would be, perhaps a day of losing car privileges. He knew the rule was to come straight home and he had broken it. We had a couple things we needed from the store and since we were out, we decided to do that. I felt that we should just wait for him to come home. Greg felt the same way. It was strange, because in the past we had had times where we felt strongly to check on him or check his phone, and we usually found things that were concerning. Our daughters had moments like that as well. Once, we thwarted a plan of his to sneak out because our daughter followed her instincts that something wasn’t right and told us her suspicions. Greg slept at the bottom of the stairs that night and sure enough, Luke came down in the middle of the night, saw Greg, and went back to bed. That was a low point, but that was weeks before, back in the hardest parts of his recovery when that was normal and to be expected. We were past that. Things were much better. Why we didn’t have those same warning feelings this day, we will never know. We did find out that he went to the 4-hour rehearsal and stayed the entire time, even taking the effort and care to mark his sheet music. 

We got home and asked the other kids if he had come home or called or anything. Nothing. We had them go to bed and then we started to worry. Greg and I said a prayer together to know what to do. Still neither of us at this point thought the worst had happened. After our prayer, we felt no strong feelings, no great prompting. I felt a little unsettled just because he wasn’t home. I think I mentioned to Greg, “I don’t have a good feeling about this.” A few minutes later, Greg saw a fb news article that said there was a fatality near our house, and then an update was given to say it seemed an intentional act. Someone had jumped off the overpass. No other details were given except that the interstate was closed. 

Only then did it cross our minds that this could be our son. I put my hand to my mouth and uttered the words, “God Almighty.” I’ve never said that phrase before. I don’t even know what I meant by it. It just seemed too huge and impossible to be true.

Greg decided to go out driving and look for himself. Maybe he could spot the car. I stayed and hoped and prayed and sent a last-ditch effort text message to Luke. It read: “Luke please, where are you?”

Greg came home and said he could tell something big happened—everything was roped off and there were lots of police cars. He didn’t see Luke’s car, so he decided to call the police and report him missing. They took down his information and said they would send an officer to the house. By this point, I was very scared. A few minutes later, I looked outside and saw a line of about 6 police SUVs lined up in front of our street. I panicked, could barely catch my breath as I told Greg what was happening. He tried to keep me calm. I opened the door as they walked up the sidewalk to the house. I’ll never forget that scene, a line of police officers walking up the path to my door. Greg saw that the first guy was actually a chaplain. He knew that was a bad sign.

I am hazy on the details of their visit, but as they stood in our living room and told us our son was deceased, I collapsed to my knees and cried. At some point I realized Greg was right behind me and I turned around still on my knees and awkwardly hugged his legs. I was speechless and still crying, but just wanted to hold onto something, someone. It was a moment that overtook me. The police waited stoically. They had to ask us some questions. I let them know that Luke had depression and was in treatment. Even in my shocked emotional state, I knew they needed to get a feel for the situation. They stayed for a while with us. The chaplain called our families and stayed until they came to be with us. He prayed with us. 

We were sitting in our living room with the police and the chaplain and had to hear about signing papers to allow them to search the car, cell phone, etc. They said words like coroner, morgue and funeral home. I was in la-la-land. Greg was asking questions, which was more than I could do, but he admitted he didn’t remember or process anything they were saying. They said this was all normal and gave us their numbers so we could call them with further questions.

So right then, we had decisions to make. We had papers to sign. We had to choose a funeral home. We had to figure out if we would wake the kids up and tell them now or wait until the morning when they would be getting up to go to school. We had to figure out how to reach our daughter in Mexico and let her know. We gave the police permission to tell the school. Everyone would know by morning. 

I went to bed that night with Greg next to me. I don’t remember if we talked. I don’t remember if we prayed. I just remember lying there not sure if I could handle what tomorrow would bring.