As a baby, born six weeks prematurely but healthy… playful and loving… as a child, eager to learn, above average intelligence, inquisitive, reading at age 4, professing a personal relationship with God at age 12….
As an adolescent, curious about the engineering of machinery, searching for a comfortable self (trying on different “shoes”), not fitting in with peers, awkward in his own skin, scoring nearly perfect on college entrance exams. As an adult, ornery, fun-loving, promising, adventuresome, philosophical…
One thing we didn’t see in Graham was depression. In fact, we thought his life was getting on track with college career goals. On May 3, 2001 we got a call from an Athens Police detective that our son was dead—by his own hand at age 22. Reactions- feelings of devastation, shock, disbelief, denial, fear (for the lives of our younger six kids), anger (at how we learned of his death), and sorrow (over what we couldn’t or didn’t do).
Our Stories
Through reading his journals later, we learned of Graham’s frustration with his perceived inability to have romantic relationships
with girls. His was an “old soul”, but socially awkward and unsure.
An outpouring of love and support from coworkers, extended
family, church, and the community was immediate. The funeral home which handled our grief with extreme sensitivity and compassion
was filled to capacity during Graham’s Memorial Service.
Our family tried to carry on with some sense of normalcy, but feared
simple tasks like answering the phone. The first grief counseling received wasn’t aimed at our specific loss, but was a generalized
grief/loss support group. Suicidal loss is different, we soon realized. It is sudden, traumatizing, shocking, and compounded
by the fact that our loved one chose to die…to leave this life…to leave the rest of us behind.
Knowing this leaves so
many unanswered questions…so many “whys?” We can reason and speculate all we want, but we’ll never know why. We can assume that
Graham was in such “limited loneliness” that he felt he had no other choice. But… until we ended the travel through the “canyon
of why”, we couldn’t move on with our lives. We do rest in the assurance that we will be with Graham again in Heaven, but we
won’t need to ask him “why...?”
After the end of the three month grief support group we realized that we needed specialized health
and healing. Another couple whom we’ve befriended at this group (who were also parents of an adult child who died by suicide)
discovered Stark County’s Survivors of Suicide Support Group and encouraged us to attend. Biweekly meetings for nearly 5 years
helped us- not to feel alone in our grief- not to feel “crazy”-to give us hope to go on. Attending seminars and conferences
on suicide helped us learn. Eventually speaking on survivors’ panels at such conferences enabled us to make something positive
out of our loss, to help other people, and to help reduce the stigma of suicide. Throughout our healing process we were aware
of God’s sustaining grace. He promised he would never leave us or forsake us and he has kept his word. He sent encourager’s
(Jesus with the skin on) in the form of family, friends, colleagues, and the survivors of suicide family, to support and love us.
Now, seven years after Graham’s death, we are honored to be part of Tuscarawas County’s Survivors of Suicide Support Group.
We are indeed saddened that such a group must exist, but are willing to share, listen, and help those new in the grief journey along
their path.
In Remembrance of Graham Thomas White
submitted by his parents
Bruce and Danette Gantz
July 2008