Almost three years ago, we published an article titled “Because he Didn’t Like the Color Green.” It was a powerful message by a widow, that had lost her law enforcement husband to suicide just a few months earlier. That article remains one of the most powerful messages I ever seen in my two decades of writing. That was until this morning. It’s been 1202 days since that fateful day for that wife and her children. This is their story today…….Travis Yates, Law Officer.
“I need a deputy to come to my house. My husband has committed suicide.”
It has been 1202 days since I made that phone call.
It lasted nearly 13 minutes and yet, until I heard the call myself, I would have guessed it to have only lasted one. They say time drags on in an emergency but for me, my sense of everything went numb. How was this happening? My God please don’t let my babies wake up and see their father dead in the garage.
Why?
Shortly after the funeral I wrote an open letter to the sheriff’s office “J” worked for, titled; “Because He Didn’t Like The Color Green.” In the immediate aftermath I found myself asking ‘Why would he do this?’ Our marriage wasn’t perfect, in fact it was on the verge of ending. But nothing solidified its ending like his suicide.
It wasn’t bad enough I burdened my own brain with the why’s, but to have everyone who saw us ask as well.
Why?
In the early morning hours following his death, I hurried our small children ages 3, 5, 8 and 10 off to school; blissfully unaware as to what had transpired the night before. It wasn’t that I planned on never telling them, I simply didn’t know what to do. Their school schedule bought me a few more hours to process what our lives had just been forced into.
It was around 9 am when the calls began rolling in……. text messages, Facebook posts and speculation. J’s best friend from childhood called me and asked me what I did to make him do such a thing because he loved his children and wouldn’t just do this. After months of being pestered with a question I couldn’t answer, I decided to just say he didn’t like the color green. Made about as much sense as any other answer I could possibly give them.
How was I to build sense from nonsense?
I knew from that moment, I was on my own. I found myself under a microscope, not by law enforcement who investigated the suicide. For them it was clean cut. J took his life but from just about everyone else it seemed.
Here I sit 3.5 years or 1202 days later, still seemingly on trial for J’s decision.
His entire department minus one or two deputies have cut off all communication. His family, with the exception of one person have convicted me in their minds and in doing so, cut off all ties to the four remaining connections they have to J…..his children.
For the first year following J’s suicide, I found myself angry that he did this to us. He hurt his children in the most egregious way. He put them to bed, waited an hour, drank half a beer, walked to the garage, sat down and never stood up again. He sat lifeless for some two hours prior to me finding him.
Our four children innocently asleep inside.
I struggle finding sympathy for J regarding the choice he made. He involved no one, gave little thought to the life he was leaving these children and never attempted to save himself.
Why? 1202 days and I’m still searching.
It took me years to realize not only was my anger pointless but he didn’t do this to us; he did this to himself. I get to see these children thrive and grow up. My goals from the beginning were to make sure this did not become their identity. That their father’s choice never held them back and rather served as the fuel to propel their lives further and strengthen their emotional intelligence; to make this mean something.
I’m choosing to be better in spite of the trauma forced upon us.
I’m choosing to raise respectful and accountable children, instead of victims.
I chose to quit texting his family and begging them to be in my children’s lives.
I’ll continue to choose happiness and patience over bitterness and rage.
If you’re in law enforcement and finding it emotionally draining to balance your personal life and career and are considering suicide; wake up.
You know what you need to do, get help!
The front of your gun is only going to make your problems suddenly not your problems but everyone else’s.
The trauma that your decision will undoubtedly create, pales in comparison to your current problems.
Absolutely no one can save you unless you choose to live.
What your suicide does to those closest is horrific to say the least. I once heard it described as a form of emotional-domestic-terrorism. I can not agree more. You don’t have the right to burden, traumatize or deprive your child of a parent.
Those close to you will want answers and a culprit named; they will never blame you. They will blame your spouse. Often times, your spouse will be called in and questioned as a suspect (you know the drill); is this what you want for your family?
All too often and in my personal situation the opposite of what you’d think your family and agency would do in the wake of your death occurs.
They turn their backs and completely strand your loved ones.
Healing seems impossible when you feel so incredibly abandoned. First by you and then by the rest.
The only way to protect them is to stay alive.
Just like we experienced and every single suicide before and after J’s, the surviving victims will be painfully asked the impossible question over and over again-“Why’d he do it?”
My why is changing to “how.”
How I live now, how my kids mean more, how I can be at peace regardless of other people, and the why is now only for the other officers “why would you ever be so stupid?”
We choose to be happy.
You need to choose to live and love.
Be here tomorrow because we will be.
Make good choices and smile………………..Heidi Ann