I walked into the small room and placed a box of donuts next to the coffee machine. The metal and plastic school chairs were haphazardly strewn all across the room abandoned by their previous occupant. I was early because I had to be. I really didn’t expect anyone else for at least another thirty minutes. The first thing I needed to do was to get the coffee pot going. Digging in the drawer reviled the last two packets of coffee; one regular and one decaf. Hopefully nobody would notice if I mixed them together.
After the coffee machine started, I began collecting the chairs. The first ten of them I placed in a large circle and the rest were stacked on top of each other and against the wall. With the room ready, I grabbed my briefcase and sat in the chair where I could monitor the door. The chair I always sat in on Thursday nights. The chair that put my back to the giant windows.
I opened my briefcase to take out a pen and legal pad. There were stacks files staring up at me from inside my briefcase. Files that I had memorized a thousand times over, files for all the members of my Thursday night group. I flipped the pages back on my legal pad and began reviewing last week’s group session. What seemed like seconds later, I heard the door open. I knew, without looking up, that Weldon and Susan had arrived. They were always the first ones there. I stood as Weldon walked towards me and Susan grabbed a cup of coffee for her and her husband.
"Doc." Weldon shook my hand. "Good to see you."
"Mr. and Mrs. Batty." I replied.
"Weldon and Sue." He corrected me with a smile.
"How are you two doing?" I asked Weldon but kept an eye on Susan.
"We’re getting by. Getting stronger every day!" He replied, but the slight jerk in Susan’s shoulders told me another story.
The door opened again and two more couples walked into the room; Mike and Cindy along with Barry and Tina. Handshakes and hugs abounded as the three couples spoke about things like the weather and the price of gas. The large clock on the wall slowly clicked its way to the top of the hour and the couples began taking their seats. With just a few seconds to spare, Clair and Sean burst into the room.
"Sorry we’re late!" Clair said as she quickly grabbed her seat.
"No problem.", 'You're not late.", "Barely beat the clock.", came a few of the replies.
I stand up and look at the four couples seated around the circle. I can a few worried glances toward the empty chair beside me.
"Welcome, everyone, to our Thursday Night Survivors meeting."
"Uh, Doc?" whispered Tina. "Do you think we should wait for Mary Beth?"
"People deal with grief in different ways." I continued our ritual. "And this group is no exception. The death of a loved one is a terrible burden to bear, but much more so for parents who have lost a child. Today is the husband’s turn."
To my left, Mike and Cindy stood. "I'm Mike and this is my wife, Cindy. Our son, Billy, committed suicide on March 14, 2009." As they sat, Weldon and Susan stood. "I'm Weldon and this is my wife, Sue. Our daughter, Nancy, committed suicide on July 22, 2010."
"I'm Barry and this is my wife, Tina. Our daughter, Becky, committed suicide on August 9, 2008."
"I'm Sean and this is my wife, Clair. Joey killed himself on December 14, 2009."
Everyone sat and looked from the empty chair to me and back to the chair.
"My son, Seth," I started, "came to me with a secret. He was gay. It was March 11, 1997 when he told me. I didn't understand it. I thought it was a lifestyle choice. I thought he made himself gay to rebel against his conservative, religious father."
All eyes were on me. Even though I had been their therapist for years, they had never heard me say a single thing about my personal life. The thoughts of the missing Mary Beth drifted away.
"We fought. Oh, how we fought! I accused him of everything under the sun; drugs, sex, alcohol...I kept trying to make sense of it all, to explain away why he was doing this to me. He kept trying to explain how it wasn’t his fault and how he needed my support." I shook my head.
"I didn't listen. Instead, I kicked him out of my house and stopped paying for his college. He had no job and no scholarship. So he left school and started living on the streets. I thought I was giving him tough love. I thought I was doing what’s best for him to help get him out of this 'choice' he made.
"He did get involved in drugs then. Another lifestyle choice, I thought. He attempted to call me, but I wouldn’t answer his calls. I was a sales executive for a large oil company and when he came by my office, I had a standing order for security to keep him out.
"I never thought it through, really. I forced him so far out of my life, I don’t know how he was supposed to let me know he 'chose' to be straight again.
"I remember it like it was yesterday when the police showed up at my office. When I saw them there, I was furious. There was no way I was going to be harassed by the police for something my son did."
Tears began streaming down my face.
"When they told me that he had jumped, it didn’t sink in. Jumped what? The deputy finally told me point blank that my son had jumped from the overpass into traffic. I needed to identify the body. And there was a note. It said:
All I ever wanted was to make my dad proud. I couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry, Dad. I love you.
"That was June 10, 1998. My next real memory was waking up in a hospital on suicide watch myself. It was a group like this one that saved my life ”“ convinced me to live. I went back to school and got my Psychology degree so I could help others they way I was once helped.
"Not a day goes by that I regret what I did to my son. I know that it was me that pushed him off that bridge. But when I felt like I couldn’t handle it, I reached out to my group and they helped.
"Mary Beth couldn’t stand the pain anymore."