Beyond Suicide: Conversations with My Brother. This item is unavailable.Beyond Suicide: Conversations with My Brother

From the Author: My brother, John, was a private in the Army in 1960. At age 20, he went to our absent parents’ home in Connecticut with an Army buddy on a weekend pass and killed himself with a rifle while his buddy was walking in the woods. At the time, his brother, the author, was 24, a Pfc. at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. I went home, consoled my parents and my elder sister, held their hands at the memorial service at the Episcopal Church, and returned to duty.For several decades I failed to deal with the issues my brother’s death raised. Suddenly one night when I was about to fall asleep, John appeared in a rocking chair by my bed. We talked – I could no longer avoid the questions his death raised. After that, from time to time we spoke together, 16 conversations all told. It took a long time to resolve the feelings of guilt I had ignored. I recorded those sessions and put them away for a while. In the meantime our discussions about life and death led me to think deeply, read largely, write extensively. Finally I felt closure with regard to John’s death and a semblance of peace with regard to my own mortality, which, on becoming an octogenarian, seemed to be looming on the horizon. This book presents the conversations, my reflections on them, and the spiritual growth that resulted. Despite the serious, almost morbid, nature of the subject, the joking and sparring relationship John and I had enjoyed in our youth continued in our conversations. It’s my nature not to be serious for too long without laughing at myself. Suicide must surely rank among the most devastating events that can happen to a family, especially one like ours which was basically agnostic if not downright atheist. Upon moving to a small Connecticut village, we were nominally Episcopalian out of social convenience. From the age of 13, shortly after we moved to Connecticut, I was off to boarding school (Andover) and then college (Harvard), virtually estranged from my family and certainly without roots in that village. It wasn’t until I found my calling, college teaching, and raised children of my own, six daughters in total, that I faced up to the “Big Event” that had occurred decades before. It’s never too late to explore your soul, to atone for your mistakes, and to make peace with yourself.