My brother committed suicide on Dec. 7, 1986. We found his body on the 11th and he was buried on the 14th. His grave is in a little country cemetery about a half-mile from my parents' house.
For several years my parents kept fresh floral arrangements on his grave, but this task got too depressing. As if they needed any more reminders of his death than those they already have.
My brother had just finished his doctoral dissertation at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His specialty was agronomy, specifically weed science, more specifically pesticides, herbicides and studying more ways for people to be able to grow more food. He was obsessed with people being able to feed themselves.
I was there when he was found. I was the one who had to call my parents and tell them their oldest son was dead. I was the one who had to call friends and family regarding the funeral date and arrangements.
For several years I would make a pilgrimage to the spot in the woods where his body was found, moments to be alone with my brother and an ongoing attempt to find answers to unanswerable questions. Until this made me too depressed, as if I needed any more reminders of his death than those I carry daily.
I mention these details for this is the reality of suicide. I don't know how many thousands of people commit suicide each year, or the demographics, or the other data or numbers. That merely makes a human, a family, into a statistic. I don't like people being made into statistics.
Suicide is in the news more lately. Celebrities like Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade remind us that we are all, in the end, only humans. I always go through an emotional range when someone famous commits suicide. The portrayal of their deaths being somehow more significant or meaningful than those of thousands of others. The thousands that don't make the news or newspapers but just as significant and meaningful for those affected. Outpourings of grief, disbelief, and searching for answers by fans, friends, and family. Answers that can only be provided by one person, a person who is no longer around.
This is the reality of suicide. For more than 30 years I have wanted to know why my brother did what he did. Why he chose the method he did. We have assumptions, guesses at factors, hints, but no real answers. Only that he is gone.
The stories of Bourdain and Spade and others make the news, we grieve over what could have been, talent and ability cut short. Yes, we grieve. But I grieve more for the families left behind, the friends and others who now will be reminded daily of a loved one gone.
A loved one who has become a statistic, a number collected and examined.
I have no sympathy for my brother. This is not meant to be harsh or cold, merely my reality.
Rather, I have sympathy for my parents, family members, those many friends of my brother who, at the funeral, all insisted on being pallbearers. I have sympathy for people who don't know what to say, who don't realize that a simple "I'm sorry" is all that is necessary. I have sympathy for those who could have benefited from my brother's work in food production.
I have no sympathy for my brother because he made a choice. He made the decision to commit suicide, even making, according to the police, the most meticulous preparations they had ever seen. My brother always was the perfectionist. He once argued with a professor about a test grade. The professor pointed out my brother set the curve by making 103 out of 100. Exactly, my brother responded, it should have been 105 out of 100.
At least I can still smile at times when thinking of him.
Perhaps if he had died in a random car accident, an extended illness, or in some other manner I would have sympathy. But not when the choice and the act was by his hand, and his alone.
This is the reality of suicide. No idolizing the one gone. Not making the dead out to be more than they are. The simple reality that a loved one, a family member, an only sibling who meant so much, a friend, is gone. Dead. Someone looked for them. Someone found them. Someone had to make the call or contact others. Someone has to live with it daily.
This is the reality of suicide.
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David Kelley lives in Fort Smith.
Editorial on 07/07/2018