A Mother’s Story Of Grief, Depression, and Hope After Her Son’s Suicide with Anne Starke, David’s Mom

A suicide can leave a family with a thousand questions and zero satisfying answers. I sat down with Anne Starke, a nurse, wife, and mom, to talk about the day her 16-year-old son, David, died by suicide and what it’s like to live with the shock of finding your child and realizing there is nothing you can do to undo it.

Ann shares the subtle changes she noticed in David over time and why teen depression can be impossible to “logic away,” even when a kid is loved, talented, and surrounded by friends. We talk honestly about suicide loss grief, the guilt that follows, and how exposure to another suicide can affect a young person who is already struggling. We also discuss the social fallout many families experience, when friends avoid you at church or in the grocery store because they don’t know what to say.

The story doesn’t skip the darkest parts: Anne’s shattered faith, anger at God, and the moment her husband had to step in because she didn’t know if she could survive. We get practical about mental health support, including therapy, trauma work, and antidepressants like Prozac, not as a “fix,” but as a tool that can steady you enough to keep breathing and keep going. Anne also explains why community with other suicide loss survivors matters so much, how prolonged grief can feel like being stuck, and how purpose slowly returned through starting Hearts of Hope and serving other grieving parents. You’ll also hear how GOD patiently and compassionately restored Anne’s faith and helped her embrace joy again.

If you’re walking through child loss, suicide bereavement, or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers real language, real hope, and permission to be honest. Share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more grieving families can find these stories when they feel most alone.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Well, hi everyone, and welcome. I'm Greg Buffkin, your host, and today you'll be listening to a conversation I recently had with Ann Stark, as she shares the story of losing her precious 16-year-old son, David, to suicide in September of 2000. Suicide rates as of 2025 in the U.S. have risen between 37 and 48% since the year 2000 in the general population, but it's now the second leading cause of death in youth and young adults aged 20 to 34. The impact of suicide on parents and families is both devastating and far-reaching. So I hope you'll listen as Anne shares about the impact of suicide in her life and how Jesus began healing and restoring her brokenness to a life today that's filled with hope and purpose. And now, here's my conversation with Ann. Well, Anne, welcome to our podcast. It is so good to have you with us today. I've really been looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Thank you, Greg. I'm happy to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, the privilege is all mine. And before we dive into your story, Ann, why don't you take a minute or two and just give us a little bit of personal information about you or your family, your work, whatever it is you'd like to share, and then we'll just dive in.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Okay. Well, I'm a wife and I'm a mother and I'm a grandmother. My husband and I will be married 49 years this March.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

We have two children. And like any anyone who's lost a child, the dreaded question is, how many children do you have? And it took me many years to come up with what I was going to say in that situation. And I came to the conclusion that I would tell people that we have a daughter who lives in Massachusetts, and we have a son who lives in heaven.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And you kind of have to be prepared for the fallout when you tell them that you've lost a child, because then the next thing is, well, how old was he and how did he die? So I'm very comfortable now sharing my story. It's it's it's a hard story. And I tell people right up front, I'll say, I have a hard story because I know that a lot of people when I especially when I when I say how David died, which was by suicide, it it kind of catches them off guard and then they they they're at a loss for words.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Yeah.

Ann’s Family And David’s Death

SPEAKER_00 3:27

It's just something that I've become comfortable with over the years because I've done a little bit of suicide prevention. And I I want to share my story because uh my story is a story of hope.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Another another part of me, a big part of me, is that I've been a nurse for over 50 years. When I was 21 years old, I was working at the children's hospital in Philadelphia, and I saw a lot of children lose their lives. And I sort of had this bargaining thing going on with God that, you know, hey, when I have children, just so you know, that is something that is more than I could bear. And I know people talk about, you know, oh, God will never give us more than we can bear. And so I had to wrestle with God for many years, and I had to wrestle with that statement. But what I've what I've come to realize is that God did not give me more than I could bear, but he gave me as much as I could bear. And the artist's thing about being a nurse and David, David took his life at home. My husband and I were both there. We both found him. And as a medical person, there was nothing that I could do to save him. And so that was a big uh part of my trauma, not just finding him, but also not being able to do anything to help him.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, I can't imagine finding your child and then those feelings of helplessness, not only as a parent, but yours was even magnified more because of your professional training as a nurse and to be able to do nothing. I think that's one of the hardest things about losing a child to suicide is it leaves you feeling it leaves you with so many questions. You know, what could I have done? What should I have seen? What should we have recognized? And you know, that list just goes on and on and on. And then the guilt comes in because we imagine that if we had only seen this, or if we had were only aware of this, maybe we could have stopped it. And we come to realize that, you know, we don't have the control that we used to think that we did. I remember that was one of the things that that really hit me hard was that, you know, I almost lived this formulaic approach to my relationship with the Lord. You know, if I do this, this will be the result. If I don't do that, you know, the Lord will be more pleased with me and you know, that sort of thing. And what I discovered is that that control that I thought I had was just an illusion. And, you know, it's losing a child to to suicide is incredibly messy and incredibly traumatic, as you said a mil a moment ago. So tell us a little bit about David. As as his mom, what would you want our listeners to know about David?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Well, David was a great kid, and he was tall and he was handsome, and he liked to brag about the fact that he had a six-pack. You know what a six-pack is?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

I do. When you have relative abs, I don't have one, but I know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

And he was loved by everyone. He had so many friends, and he and he and he he was loved by his teachers, and it just came as such a shock to everyone when he did pass away because they just couldn't believe that it was David Stark. Are you sure it was David Stark? But when David was about 12, his sister went off to college, and they were six years apart, but they were very close. And she was actually like a second mother to him. And when she went away to school, he he grieved her. He really grieved her and he was sad. David was always a happy-go-lucky, easy-going, very tender heart. But I but I just saw this sadness in him. But it didn't worry me too much. You know, I mean, it those years are hard years. And yet when he turned 14, he was working at a golf course. He was a golfer from the time he was old, and they put a golf club in his hands. He just loved it. He would eat and breathe golf. He was good at all sports, but he preferred golf over everything. And he would be out on the golf course all day long. And when he was working at the golf course, when he would would get out of work, he would, he'd go out on the course and he would hit balls, and I would go pick him up at sundown. And I noticed that by the time he would turn 15, he he just he he wasn't himself. And I I noticed that he wanted me to come pick him up right after work. He didn't want to go out on the golf course. And at first I thought it was more like like a seasonal affect disorder. Right. Because he would start off school in September and he would he would do really well and he would be involved in activities. And by January, February, he would like take a nosedive. And so again, I didn't think much of it, but I read a book called Real Boys by William Pollock.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And there's a chapter in there on depression. Oh and he was about 15 at the time. And I I read this chapter, and I could just check off the list of all these things. When I said to my husband, I'm like, David's depressed. And of course, it's one of those things that people don't understand about depression because people would say, Well, what does he have to be depressed about? He, you know, everybody loves him. He's got friends, and he's a great guy. And he didn't want to feel that way. He really struggled with it. Because I would say to him, David, what's wrong? And he'd say, I don't know, mom. I just don't know. And then the March that he turned 16, one of his friends in the youth group shot himself.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And when Tommy died, just I went into, you know, mama bear mode.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Of course she did.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

And I I was like, I I could see that David was was really struggling. He he was pulling away from things, away from some of his friends, and he he he just wasn't the happy-go-lucky funny kid that we all knew.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So I took him to a an adolescent psychiatrist in Hartford, Connecticut, and he was so impressed with David that he agreed to counsel David himself.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

Wow.

Early Signs Of Teen Depression

SPEAKER_00 10:07

And at the same time, we we put him on medication. And the psychiatrist was never worried about David, you know, taking his life. Even after Tommy died, and as a church, our church kind of went into a little bit of panic mode also. In, you know, we had a lot of meetings as parents and getting together and talking about suicide.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And and even David's sister said to him one time, you know, David, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And so, you know, but he said, he told his dad and I, that's something he would never do. But I think that's the thing about depression is that when you're in that dark place, and I eventually, I got to that place myself after David died.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Even though I had promised my family, oh, I would never take my life. I was in such a dark place that I really didn't know what I would do, although I didn't have a plan. And I think after Tommy died, one of the questions that David had for his dad was, Well, Dad, how do you think he, where do you think he put the gun? And of course, the boys all want to know that kind of stuff. They want to know what kind of gun it was and where did he put it because Tommy did not die right away. Tommy was, they were able to procure all his organs. And at Tommy's service, his father got up and eulogized his son uh and praised him for all the lives that he saved with his eyes and his heart and his liver and this, that, and the other thing. And there's there's my son sitting in in the church who's depressed, who's hearing all the lives that Tommy saved by dying. And, you know, David just being 16, he he just didn't realize the ramifications of, you know, using a shotgun versus a pistol. And there was nothing we could do.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And I am so sorry. You know, it's it's really interesting as I've listened to you share this. Our lives ran such a parallel with with what you described about the at different ages, what you began to see in David so very similar to our son Ryan. And I don't think anybody, as you said a moment ago, very few people I would say, really realize this that depression, clinical depression, goes far above and beyond the emotional state. It affects us mentally, it affects us physically, it affects us spiritually, and it's not just about feeling better. You know, though there are chemical imbalances that occur in our brains. And, you know, when you're 16 years old, or even 26 in Ryan's case, I think especially with young men, like when you ask him what was wrong, and he said, I don't know. I think young men have a very hard time putting those those thoughts and feelings into words and expressing it that's that they think it is adequate in any way, shape, or form. And a lot of times, unfortunately, you know, there are things like that that we attribute to being a teenager. And to just the stuff that they're dealing with in the culture and in school and the and the list goes on and on. So you guys really had had no warning, very, very much like us. It just, you know, you you wake up one morning and your child is here. And you wake up the next morning and your child's no longer here. And you never had a chance to say goodbye. You never had a chance to to hold their hand or you know what I mean? It it just it the impact is something you can't even begin to imagine unless you've lived it. And we wouldn't want anybody else to be able to to say that they understand because that means they had to have lived it.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So what I would like to spend a minute talking about to Anne is that you know when and you were describing this a moment ago, sometimes after we lose a child, and the the pain is so intense and the trauma is so deep that sometimes we don't even know if we want to survive. And sometimes parents consider taking their own lives. Thankfully, most don't. But as you said, it's such a dark place to find yourself in that sometimes it it just feels like, okay, I just want to go and join my child in heaven, you know? And that would be the quickest way to do it. But you're not thinking about the like you said with David and like with Ryan, they didn't think about the consequences and the impact or fallout on other people's lives. So I'm thankful that the Lord met you in that dark place and helped you to to be able to gain perspective and he brought you out of that dark place into a better place.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I didn't want to survive. First of all, I didn't know how I was gonna survive. And my faith was shattered, my heart was shattered.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And I I my grief was so consuming. It consumed me. And so David died in September, it was the first day of school, which was not a coincidence because there were things going on at school that we didn't know about until after he, well, we had an idea that he was that he and his friends were being bullied. But a lot of it didn't come to light until after he died. But my daughter had graduated from college, thank the Lord, because I don't think she would have graduated had she not already graduated. And so, and she's always been a really independent person. And I thought, you know, she's gonna be okay. And my husband, I don't care about him. I just want to be with David. And what I didn't realize at the time was how hurtful that was to them, especially to my daughter, because she would, he would say, you know, well, what about me, mom? I'm still here. I still have my life, but I just I couldn't get past this grief that was so heavy. And I spiraled quickly into a depression. David died in September. By mid-November, I was in a very dark place. And my husband called called home one day to check on me, and he didn't like the way I sounded, so he called the police and they took me away. I said, Are you serious? You're gonna take me away. And I fought it at first, and then I just I just went into a fetal position. Don't forget, I I'm I'm not eating, I'm not sleeping, I'm crying all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Very common.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah. And and I I remember my therapist did say to me though, she said, Ann, if you take your life, your your daughter will never survive.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

And so that was always in the back of my mind because I I just I didn't think I would be able to do that. But they took me away. By the time my husband got to the hospital, I was in a fetal position. And he thought they had drugged me, but they they just kept coming in wanting me to take my clothes off. And I I wouldn't. I and I they'd come in and I didn't know, you know, are you the cleaning lady or are you the nurse or are you the doctor? And I found myself getting angrier and angrier, which worked in my favor because sometimes that anger piece really helps us to do what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

And for me, it it meant getting on medication, which I I resisted at first because David was on an antidepressant. And and it did seem to be helping him, but it after he died, it was like all his friends were on medication all of a sudden. But I knew that I had to do something because I couldn't keep on living like I was living. So we talk about talk about tear soup and all the things that go into healthy grieving. And in my soup, you know, it was Prozac, because that was was a great drug for me. And it really helped me to be in a better place for God to meet me where I was at.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, I'm glad you shared that, and because, you know, when I think back to the early part of your converse, our conversation, you are a medical professional, and I was a pharmaceutical rep. And like you, I eventually was diagnosed with clinical depression a few months after we lost Ryan. It's interesting that you can be in that world every day in the medical profession. You know all the symptoms, you know the treatments, and you know that most often physicians prescribe antidepressants for somebody who is battling clinical depression. Because if you don't, then the results can be not very good, whether it's suicide or just just going into a spa a deep spiral. But I'm glad that you had somebody in your life, like your husband, who recognized that something wasn't right, even though you initially resisted, you finally did cooperate and allowed the doctor to prescribe Prozac. Interestingly enough, I take Prozac as well. And it does help. And I want people to understand who are listening that it doesn't fix us. The antidepressants are not designed to fix us. It doesn't take away the grief or the pain. It's just designed to basically give us a leg up to help bring those chemicals back into balance so that we can then cope normally, so that we can walk through it normally. And then we're able to even reach out to God in prayer, because sometimes when you're so depressed, you you don't even think about doing that.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Right. Especially when you're angry with God.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, yeah, and that's not uncommon. And if you if if you're listening today and you find yourself angry with God because, you know, because you're you lost your child, he's a good father and he can he understands our emotions. He's fine with you expressing that. He loves it when you when we come to him and express that instead of keeping it inside, because let's face it, he already knows what we're thinking to begin with. So it's not like we're keeping it from him, but we're just we're just not dealing with it, is basically what it amounts to. And that's And you know what I did?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

You know what I did? I dared God to heal me. I just like there is no way that you can heal me of this deep loss. And, you know, I remember a friend said to me, 'cause because I I I didn't leave the church, but I couldn't go to church. Again. And a friend of mine said, you know, that's your Goliath, Annie. And I was like, well, it it may be, but you know, I go to church and I see intact families and I see all of David's friends. You know, my kids both grew up in that church. And I it was just too hard. And I it was hard enough just to get up every day and get dressed. You know, my friends was, when was the last time you took a shower, Annie? And so I I stopped doing what was really hard. And a friend of mine had said, Well, what brought you back to God? Because I mean, I I was gone and I didn't want anything to do with the God thing. If it was the God thing, not doing it. And I had a friend who lost her son three years after I lost David, and we had known each other for many years. So I reached out to her when her son died, and she was going to a conference in California for mothers who had lost children. And it's an umbrella ministry conference. And I said, Is it the God thing? And she said, Well, yeah. I said, Well, then I'm not going. And so I didn't for two years. She asked me. And then the third year, right around that time, David had been gone about five or six years. My husband said to me one day, um, he says, You know what, honey, I think you're becoming bitter. And I said, What? Me? Bitter? I I I don't want to be bitter. My mom was better. And I don't want to be better. And so when she asked me the third year, I said, all right, I'll go to California. But I'm not singing any songs and I'm not going to any of those God things. But I'll go because you know what? There's going to be a hundred moms there. And maybe I need to listen to them because they know. They know I don't want to listen to the church ladies because, you know, they're telling me you need to go to church, Annie. And I'm like, I have a hard enough time getting out of bed every day, let alone going to church. Seeing people I don't want to see. Because that's another thing with suicide. You know, people avoid you like the plague.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

You know, we noticed.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

The grocery store, you know, they see you and they go in the next aisle.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

It's a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

That was one of the I'm sorry, I was I was just going to say that was one of the hardest things for Kathy, my wife, to do for a couple of years after we lost Ryan was to go in the grocery store. Because of the same reason you just said.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Well, that and the fact that you go down the aisle that has all your, you know, all of David's favorite foods. I couldn't go down the cookie aisle for years. And I would go, I would go to a grocery store two towns over. So I didn't have to, you know, see anybody. It's funny because it's been 25 years and I still have trouble going to this one store in the in the little town where we lived.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Um Yeah. People don't realize how how long lasting that impact can be. You know, 25 years later, that's what some people don't understand is that you don't just quit grieving one day. You know, you're not suddenly well one day and there's no more grief or pain.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

It it's a lifelong journey that we have to learn how to navigate.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. So I went to California, and when I left California, I had hope in my heart for the first time in six years.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

And because I I had to listen to what these women had to say. And I still didn't want to do the God thing, but at the same time, God gave me a vision as we were packing up beef. I was packing my suitcase and I just I just heard, you know, in my heart, I heard, you know, God said to me, Okay, now I want you to go back to Connecticut and I want you to take this hope back to Connecticut. And I want you to start this group, and I want you to call it Hearts of Hope, and I want you to make a heart, and it's going to have a hole in the middle because that's the reunion heart that someday that hole will be filled. So I said to my friend who was with me, who got me to go, I said, Hey, I said, we got to go back to Net Connecticut and do this. And she said, Do what, Annie? And I said, We got to bring hope back to Connecticut.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Oh, I love it.

Aftermath, Hospitalization, And Medication

SPEAKER_00 25:42

You know, I mean, I've I, you know, we started this support group and God just, you know, he blessed us financially. I mean, money just came out of the woodwork. And we started delivering, we called them baskets of hope to moms who had lost children. And, you know, my friend, of course, she she did the God thing from the beginning. She, she turned to God instead of turning away from God like I did. And so we kind of had to meet in the middle to facilitate this group together. And there were times where I would just say, nope. I said, you know what? We're not putting that book in the basket because it's a God book. And if I'd gotten a basket with that kind of a book, I would have thrown it out. And so, you know, it's interesting how the years went by because we did the ministry for about 13 years. God, God just brought me back. You know, he it's like he, it's, I think of Hagar when she ran away into the desert and God went after her. And that was what a friend of mine said, Well, what brought you back to God? And I said, I said, he did. I didn't, you know, she said, Well, what did you do? I said, I didn't do anything. But he he came and he got me and he brought me back. And, you know, once once my my heart was softened, I was able to look at the ways that God had reached into my grief to heal me. But I couldn't see that when I was so angry with him. Yeah. And the bitterness was in.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

It clouds everything. And don't you love how God loves us? He didn't get angry with you. He didn't punish you for getting angry with him. He gave you time and space and he was patient and kind. And then he arranges your life so that you go to this conference and you come back, and God spoke to you at that conference, and look what he's done in the ensuing years, and look at all the people, other grieving parents that you've been able to help, and your friend was able to help, simply because you decided to work with God and let him work through you. And now look at all the lives that have been touched, and what a great way to honor your son. I mean, what an incredible way. So he continues to touch people's lives through you, even though he hasn't been with us for a while. I love that. I love how God does that.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Mm-hmm. Yes, I love that too.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah. Let me ask you something. I I think this is I I hear consistently from people how important this is. I I know that it is, and I I know what your answer is going to be. Pretty sure. So when we begin that healing process, when when we when our when we start beginning to be able to see life again and think about the lives of our children and the you know the memories that we, the good memories that we had, and all that we enjoyed for those years that we had them, then we were able to be able to interact with people again. And I found, Kathy and I found that community was so important in our healing process. What was that like for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Well, initially, about three months after David died, we went to a support group. I won't mention the name of it because it's nationwide. But, you know, and it wasn't just child loss. It, you know, there were aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas. It was about 25 people, and we sat in a circle. We couldn't talk about God for one thing. Not that I wanted to, but there was one guy who was sharing about losing his daughter, and she had been gone for 15 years. And I when we left that night, I said to my husband, I said, you know what? I said, if I'm gonna look as bad as that guy looks in 15 years, you might as well just put me in the grave right now. And I realized it just wasn't, it wasn't the right group. And the first time I really was so comforted was my daughter had moved out to Colorado and we went out there and she had started to get involved in suicide prevention. And we met a couple who had lost their son to suicide. And that was the first time that I had met someone who had not only lost a child, but had lost a child to suicide. And and I just realized the importance of being with other people with similar losses.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

I know, I know you can't compare losses, but my daughter used to get upset with me because I would say, but you don't know what it's like to lose a child. And she would get upset because she would, she thought I was saying my loss was worse than hers, which I wasn't. But again, I haven't lost a brother yet.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

I can't relate to that either, but we need to be with other moms and dads who have lost children.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Well, they have the roadmap, they've already been down the road, and they, you know, you you could say something to me, like Ann, you shouldn't be doing that. And I and I don't mean you, Greg, but I mean like some church lady.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

And I would just I would just be like, Are you kidding me? But if it was someone who had lost a child who said the very same thing to me, you know what? I have to listen to what they're saying. And and we do get stuck in our grief. And I think it's important to have people around us that have been down the path longer than we have to be able to say, you know, you're stuck and maybe this is what you should do.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Those are really good words, and I'm glad that that you guys were able to step into those relationships with others who would experience the same thing. And I think it is different. It's like there's an instant connection when you meet somebody, another parent or parents who have experienced suicide loss, or they've lost a child at the very least, no matter what the cause was. It's like there is this instant bond between you and they get you. You don't have to explain why you do certain things or why I can't go to the grocery store or why I can't go back to church right now. They get it. They've been there, they understand it. And so it just you just feel so much more at ease with them knowing that somebody understands me.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yeah, a friend of mine used to say, we speak the same language. And but you have to find the right group. I I I went to another group, a suicide survivor group. By the time I left the group, I felt worse than when I got there. I I had reached out to a nurse that worked in the hospital across the street from me. We got connected and her and I started going to these suicide survivor groups. And I said, you know, we and we both, we both felt worse after the the meeting. And so that's one of the things we tried to do in Hearts of Hope was to give moms tools to to grieve. Because I used to say to my friend who really took care of me for three months after David died, I would say, Ruthie, I don't know how to do this. How do I do this? How do I, how do I grieve? I don't know how to grieve. I mean, I'd lost, lost my dad, you know, and that was a sudden loss. And he was only 70, and I was his, you know, he he was my hero.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

And that was hard, but this, this couldn't even compare to that.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

I understand.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

That was the other thing, you know, about being in groups. I was in one group where there was three ladies who had lost their mothers. And I don't mean recently, I'm talking like three, four years. And I just found myself getting angry that, you know, like I would think to myself, you don't you don't know what what it is. You know, we're we're supposed to lose our parents. We we know that, but we we're never s you're not supposed to lose your child. Right, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Right. Those are expected losses. Nobody, nobody ever expects to lose a child. And we don't come equipped to know how to process it and walk through it. So what does she how was that friend able to help you?

Returning To Faith And Building Hearts Of Hope

SPEAKER_00 34:27

I was in such shock. I don't think the shock wore off for a year. There's a lot I don't even remember about the first three months. Well, my friends took care of me, you know, like eating and, you know, changing my clothes and but she didn't know how to help me either because she she hadn't lost a child. Her and her husband both were were there every day. And the other thing I I didn't realize because of the trauma of finding David, I was about eight years down the road and I thought I was doing really well. But what I what I realized, what I never dealt with the trauma of finding him. And so I did end up doing some trauma therapy after that, which I don't know if it helped me or not. But you know, there's there's times where I felt like I was stuck. I remember going to one one new therapist, and she said, So tell me your story. And so I told her my story. And by the time I got done, she was just like amazed that I was even breathing and walking, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And when you describe feeling stuck, there is there is actually a medical diagnosis known as prolonged grief disorder. I mean, it was just recently in the last two or three years added to the mental health guidelines that psychiatrists and psychologists use uh to you know for diagnosing. And it's a very real thing. We feel like we're stuck, and that's what they call it in the medical profession, is prolonged grief disorder. So so yeah, it's very real.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

And I think sometimes grief is kind of like an onion. There's layers of grief. And and you know, depending on your life and what's going on, you know, in your marriage or with your other children, it it brings up certain things. And it's like, God knows we can't deal with everything at once. So little by little, you know, things come up and then we have to deal with them.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

That's a great analogy.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah. I think I think that really more accurately describes it than the stages of grief.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Because stage, you know, there there's there's so many layers to it. And I think that's an incredible analogy. Let me ask you one last question. What do you think when you look back over these it's been a long time since 2000, I believe, is when you guys lost. Yes. What do you do you feel like you're a different person today than you were prior to 2000? Sometimes we feel like in defire, as it were, in those trials and sufferings of life that God uses those things to refine us like nothing else can. How would you describe how that's played out in your life?

Support Groups, Trauma Therapy, And Stuck Grief

SPEAKER_00 37:22

When I look at pictures of myself before David died, I don't even recognize myself. And I I have I put it ADD and B D D before David died and after David died. Yeah. And one of the one of one of the best books we ever found that we put in our baskets is The Journey Through Grief by Dr. Alan Woolfeld. And he talks about the six needs of mourning, and one of those is developing a new self-identity. And I'm David's mom. I will always be David's mom. Right. But my grief has given me gifts that I never knew that I had. You know, even the home that we moved to after David died, because he died in our home. And I said from day one, I said, I can't stay here. And my husband was so against moving because we had a loan mortgage and, you know, why should we move and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, every time I pulled into the garage, I saw David laying there. And I couldn't live out the rest of my life. So we moved to a brand new house right across the street from some dear friends of ours who had lost their little girl when she was five years old. And what a gift that was. What a what I called it my healing house because we were there about 12 years and we we really did heal. I I think, you know, when you when you buried your child, you become a force to be reckoned with. And I don't I don't put up with a lot of the stuff that I used to put up with. Life is too short for that. And I mean I I'm not a superficial person and I don't want to be, I don't want to be in superficial relationships. I'm I'm very particular about who I spend most of my time with. And I've just come to uh appreciate life and I I found joy again, which I when I was daring God, you know, like there's no way. I used to tell moms early on, I used to tell moms, I'll never be happy. You know, happiness is happenstance, and you know, after everything I've been through, I will never be happy. I feel bad that I said that now, but I think more what I feel is joy because I do do David used to say, Mom, stop and smell the roses. And I do now. I I just I I take the time to live in the present because I was always a worry wart and and a and a people pleaser. And and a lot of that's changed because I'm just gonna be who I am. And one of the gifts that I discovered after David died was was that I that I could write. Well, uh as nurses, we didn't have to write. I mean, our notes were like three-word sentences. And so I was never a writer. But one day the Lord spoke to my heart and said, I I want you to enter this writing contest. And it was about three years after David died. And I was like, What? What am I gonna say? And I laid down to to to take a nap. And it was, and God just gave me the words, like, you know, this is what I want you to say. And it was all about healthcare heroes and why did you choose the profession that you chose? And so I just wrote this and I ended up winning the contest. Well, you know, I I was one of 10 healthcare heroes in Connecticut that year. And then that just kind of grew to when I left California, I was flying to Arizona after being at the ministry conference. I was flying to California to see my brother. And and I I heard God say in my heart, I want you to write this down. I want you to write your story down. And I didn't have any paper, so I wrote it on a napkin. And I and I called it from Nightmares to Miracles because I woke up.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I woke up the first day of school at 6:30 to a gun blast, and that was a nightmare. And I woke up every morning to a nightmare. And so nightmares aren't just for the night. And, you know, the miracle is that God took me from there to where I am now. And it's taken a long time, you know. My therapist said to me, I said, How long is this gonna be? How long am I gonna feel like this? And she said, give yourself three to five years. And that was really about the time because that was around the time I went to California and everything changed. But those first five years, you know, and especially going back to work and taking care of teenage boys, you know, I last David, I saw David on a on a gurney in a in a body bag. And my patients were on gurneys every day because they were going into the OR.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

And so it was something I didn't know I could do. And there were certain things I couldn't do. I would ask my coworkers, you know, can you take them into the OR for the induction? Because that was very hard for me to watch, you know, these kids that were being induced, but you know, it was like watching them die. And I couldn't, I couldn't do that. So Yeah. And actually, people that, you know, knew me early on, I don't even have a lot of those people in my life anymore.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Yeah, I understand that.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

I don't know if you find, but I just found, you know, people just, I don't know. They they I don't know if it's they can't handle our grief or they they it hurts them too much to see us hurting that they walk out of our lives.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

But it leaves us wondering. I mean, we rarely ever do we get the answers to those two questions. But yeah, we experience that. It grief has a way of thinning the herd, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Yes, yes. Well, and not only that, but God brings people into your life that you would have expected.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

He knows what we need, so He does.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

He does. His timeline is not like ours. And his ways are not like ours. But his ways are perfect. And the way that he arranges things in our lives and the way that he heals us when we didn't think there was a chance that we would ever get better. You know, look at both of us now, and your husband and my wife. And when I think about all that God has done in healing y'all and in healing us, and then allowing you guys and us to be able to reach out and find ways to help other grieving parents. I mean, only God can do stuff like that. And I'm just so thankful that he doesn't waste anything. And he he redeems it, no matter how bad it is or how painful, he redeems it for good if we will just let him. And I know you found that. Well, and I just so appreciate your transparency and honesty about your grief journey and your subsequent healing journey and what God's done in your life. I just appreciate so much that you you didn't try to sugarcoat anything because people that are listening today that are grieving, they don't want anything sugarcoated. They they just want the rawness and the honesty of what it's like and to know that there's hope. And to know that they can experience, as you said, they can experience joy again. Happiness comes and goes, but joy transcends circumstances. So I appreciate you sharing that and for giving us a glimpse into the life of a mom who lost her son many years ago. I know that it people are going to find this very encouraging and hopeful.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Well, I want people to know that you can survive this kind of a loss and you can come out on the other side better instead of bitter. I like to use that. The bitter, better. You know, that there's a difference of the I and the E.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah, I love that.

New Identity, Joy, And Final Encouragement

SPEAKER_00 45:30

And the E better is Emmanuel, which is, you know, God with us. Big part of my healing was was reaching out to hurting moms. And we found in our support group that when a mom got to a point where she was able to reach out and either bring another mom with her or come with us to to deliver a basket or just even make a phone call, it was a turning point in their healing when you can do that, when you can reach out and help someone else. Absolutely. I mean, early on, let's face it, who has the energy for that? And I'm not sure that's the best thing to do. We also found that moms that started, you know, support groups or big organizations or whatever early on didn't always fare so well. You know, you need to have time to grieve and and to really wrestle with all the questions that you have and all the whys. And, you know, I had to come to people used to say, well, why? Why do you and I used to ask why? And then one day it occurred to me, even if I knew why, it wouldn't change anything.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Precisely.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

So I don't need to know why anymore. I'm at peace with that. David, you know, he didn't do it to hurt us. He was in a dark place. And the way that I really made peace with his his suicide is that he was not in his right mind when he pulled that trigger.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Because people would ask me, Well, aren't you mad at him? I'm like, no, I can't be mad at David because he would never do anything to hurt us. Right. But mad at God, yeah, I was mad at God. But God can handle it.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

He can. He handles it way better than we do. Well, and again, thank you so much for being my guest. I have so enjoyed our conversation today as well as a couple of months or so ago when we initially talked by phone. And I know that God's going to continue to use your story and use you to help other people. So thank you for for sharing with us today.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Well, thank you for what you're and your wife are doing because it's important. We need people that get it.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Yeah, we do. And we we both are very thankful that that the Lord chose to use us in this way. It's a privilege.