Out of the Darkness

I've wanted to post about this for several days, but was so emotionally drained from it all, I couldn't even get started.  Now that I am finally sitting down to get it all out, I only hope I can do with the respect and eloquence it deserves.

Last weekend was a strange juxtaposition of emotions and events.  It began Friday afternoon, when I donned my pink "Bosom Buddies" T-shirt and headed out to spend the night with my fellow "Bosom Buddies" at the Relay for Life.  For those unfamiliar with it, the Relay for Life is a fundraising event put on by the American Cancer Society.  Each team commits to having someone walking for 24 hours.  We work in shifts, usually two at a time, but often more, walking for an hour.  We have tents set up behind our booth where we do fundraising in a variety of ways.  I learned about this team through a teacher I substitute for, who happens to be a breast cancer survivor, hence the team name.

We began our event with opening ceremonies, including survivors who shared their stories, which had us all thinking "Damn, I forgot to bring my kleenex" as we wiped away our tears.  Then the walk began at 6pm, with the first lap being walked  by the survivors while we handed them flowers and blew bubbles.   It is both encouraging and humbling to see so many people who have fought, and won, this battle and very unnerving to see how many of those survivors were young people.  It was a wonderful start to a truly amazing night.  We stayed up talking, laughing, playing games and taking turns walking.  Eventually, we even managed to sneak in some sleep.

I had planned to stay for the full 24 hours, but life had other plans, so Saturday morning I got up and left my team to go to a Memorial service for a wonderful man. This man had been a part of my life since I was a child.  He was my youth pastor growing up and head pastor of the church we attended when the kids were small.  He officiated our marriage, baptized all my children, spent time at my house when he came over and brought his trains to have a playdate with my son.  He was also my dad's best friend, and he and my dad would take my son to multiple airshows every year.  He was in every way a part of our family.  The service was beautiful and emotional.  More people showed up than the church could hold (over 700 people!) and everyone had a story to share about how this man touched them.

If I told you that my pastor died after a very long battle with illness, what would you think?  You might assume cancer because it is so ubiquitous a disease.  I'd bet you might also think he must have been a brave and strong man to have fought his disease for so long.  But cancer is not what took our pastor away from us.  Instead, he lost a battle with depression.  It's very hard to reconcile the man we all know with the act that took his life. Knowing that he took his own life, do you still think him brave and strong? Until that day, I was like everyone else who thought "People who commit suicide are selfish - too selfish to care how they are going to hurt others."  Isn't that what most of us think?  Maybe that's true for some people.  But not my pastor.  There was not a selfish cell in his body.  He spent his life caring for others, nurturing others, healing others.  Even just days before he left us, he was tending to others, calling my dad and checking to see how he was handling an early retirement that was forced upon him by a plant closure.  He was ALWAYS taking care of people, and guiding them to God.

So, I naturally spent the first several days after his death feeling just . . . lost.  I was raised to believe that God is bigger than all our troubles; a belief, a FAITH, that was guided and nurtured by my pastor, and throughout my life that has always been true.    Then WHY wasn't God bigger than my pastor's troubles?  How could the man who helped guide my faith not be saved from the pain of depression by his own faith? 

I spent the entire week after his death barely able to sleep because I could not turn off my mind.  Then I went to the Relay for Life, and I listened to all of these wonderful, inspiring stories.  Every survivor had a unique tale to tell, but they all had one very important common denominator.  They had support.  They had people - friends and family - who stood by them and took care of them and their children.  Their support team read with them and stayed with them during treatment and made them laugh, and cried with them when they cried.  As I listened to all of these wonderful beautiful stories of love, I looked around a saw a thousand people all gathered together, giving up a day to walk in support of those they love, and in support of people they will never know.  It made me very very sad, because it answered all the questions I had been struggling with the week prior.

How many of you have participated in an event to raise awareness and support for some disease?  I have walked for cancer, for MS, for Down Syndrome. There are events for AIDS and autism, leukemia, breast cancer, premature babies . . . but there is nothing for depression.  No walks to raise awareness, no rallies to show support, no fundraisers to fund research . . . nothing.  That needs to change.  We need to stop looking at depression as a mere emotion and acknowledge it for what it is:  a disease.  We need to stop judging people who suffer from depression as weak, and support them for who they are: brave, scared people fighting a disease.

I will never again assume that anyone who has taken their own life has done so out of selfishness or weakness.  My pastor was neither of those things.  My pastor was strong and he was brave.  He was brave enough to care for others while he suffered in silence.  I hope anyone who comes across this will do the same.  We need to bring depression out of the shadows and into the light.  We need to acknowledge it, and dignify those who suffer from it by giving it the same deference and attention as other illnesses.  Depression is real, depression hurts and depression kills.  Let's shine the light on it, and maybe, if we do it together, we can save lives.