The Documentary, Boy Interrupted / Teri (Eric's Mom) The film about Evan Perry made by his parents Dana and Hart Perry aired on HBO. It is currently being held for viewing in the On Demand HBO library that certain cable subscribers have access to.
I very much appreciated the film as Evan was a boy who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a very young age. He had excellent psychiatric care and parents who were very well educated about mental illness; and who were meticulous in their parenting of Evan who ended his life by jumping out of the window in his New York high-rise apartment.
The journey this family has taken; both before and following Evan's death seemed so very familiar. The shock and disbelief that a young life could end so tragically is universal despite what we parents know about the statistics surrounding bipolar disorder. In that horrific aftermath of Eric's death I remember calling his psychiatrist to tell him what had happened. He said "15-20% of people with bipolar disorder commit suicide." I was shocked at the doctor's lack of human emotion about what I had just told him. Where was the shock? Where was the sympathy? I guess a child psychiatrist who treats patients with bipolar disorder has built a pretty hard shell around the heart that understands that 15-20% of his patients will end up dead---by their own hand. This was something I would not allow to believe about Eric's diagnosis. In fact I still do not really know if it was this bipolar disorder that ended his life; or if it was the choking game. Either way I guess it was impulsive. I don't know.
I was moved by the film and wrote this note to the film makers:
Dear Dana and Hart;
Thank you for your film. I lost my only child Eric age 13 on Dec. 7 2004. He like young Evan was a victim of bipolar disorder. Eric hanged himself quiet as a mouse in his room while I was just upstairs in my own bedroom. We had had an argument but he was calm and I thought the "episode" had ended like so many others before. God how I anguish about that night. I'm sure you understand. I have watched and re-watched Eric's childhood videos combed over his photos and artwork and anything he left that he touched. I have written and written and written about him about us about everything. Looking so hard for the underlying truth; the meaning behind this mystery this misery.
I want to thank you for putting voice to this disease this THING this mystery of human existence that never used to affect children. It was something that occurred in young adulthood. Not anymore. Now it is many many children who are coming with this disorder -- and I often loathe using the words "disorder" or "disease" because my boy's heart his soul contained so much beauty so much energy and creativity so much sensitivity and joy --- right along with the terrible rawness that ended up taking his life. Sometimes I think Eric lived a complete and total life within those 13 years. So alive and open to the feelings that most people take entire lives to attain....and many many never achieve the depths of feeling that our boys did in their short years here.
I am honored to know your Evan through your film which very much accomplished showing him as a uniquely brilliant person. Of course your film also did the important work of showing what this mental illness is about. How tricky it can be. How impossible it is to sometimes overcome even under the best of circumstances with the most alert attentive and educated parents. This I think is so very important because it is assumed out there in the general public that suicides only happen among youngsters when there is no prior diagnosis; or when "signs" or "signals" are not properly read. NOT ALWAYS. This vast arena of childhood mental illness which I believe Evan and Eric were both pioneers is such a vitally critical topic to be discussing and funding. Your film I believe will do a lot in that vain. For that you should be proud as I am sure Evan is proud of you both.
Thank you for being such wonderful parents to Evan. Thank you for your film Boy Interrupted.
A fellow traveler on this horrific grief road
Teri Grove
Mom of Eric 12/05/1991-12/07/2004
Your Time / Mom Time and Change
Without you there is no tether. I fly amongst the changes shifting between them; donning them at the wind’s will.
On a starry starry night your life ended…..I sob at McClean’s song about Vincent Van Gogh. It haunts me. But it is not your song Eric. Because surely I must have told you Eric the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
Now I understand. You did not suffer from insanity. You were misunderstood. It is not insane to see more clearly than everyone else. It is not insane to love more deeply to care more intently. You were the sanest person I have ever known. Will ever know.
Now I understand. It was your time to go.
Turn Turn Turn
Words-adapted from the bible book of Ecclesiastes
Music-Pete Seeger
To everything (turn turn turn)
There is a season (turn turn turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to be born a time to die
A time to plant a time to reap
A time to kill a time to heal
A time to laugh a time to weep
To everything (turn turn turn)
There is a season (turn turn turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to build upa time to break down
A time to dance a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones a time to gather stones together
To everything (turn turn turn)
There is a season (turn turn turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time of love a time of hate
A time of war a time of peace
A time you may embrace a time to refrain from embracing
To everything (turn turn turn)
There is a season (turn turn turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to gain a time to lose
A time to rend a time to sew
A time to love a time to hate
A time for peace i swear it's not too late
The Curse of Sincerity / Teri (Eric's Mom) sincere |sinˈsi(ə)r|
adjective ( -cerer , -cerest )
free from pretense or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings : they offer their sincere thanks to Paul.
• (of a person) saying what they genuinely feel or believe; not dishonest or hypocritical.
One time, not so long after my son’s death, my sister-in-law sent a cute email that asked people to use one word to describe another person. I chose “optimistic” for her; she chose “sincere” for me.
I think that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I cherished her assessment, because I was feeling in my grief state, very unloved and unlovable. I also knew that it was my honesty in life that had caused me so many problems. I thought I had learned how to deliver honesty kindly, as in my youth I’m afraid that I sometimes bludgeoned people with the truth. In my grief, I know I did.
As I have grown and matured and faced down lots of trauma and tragedy, (as well as joy and success) what I leaned is that people despise honesty, even when, perhaps most when, it is delivered kindly. People want to lie to themselves about themselves, as much as they lie to others. The truth has become dispensable, even criticized by these liars as a mere “subjective reality.” What a lying load of crap. It’s really amazing to see how far liars can go to perpetuate and protect their false turf built upon deceit. Calling the truth subjective, depending upon one’s reality is simply a more sophisticated way of lying. Pathetic. “Oh the wicked webs we weave, when we practice to deceive.”
Upon lots of further reflection, I now see my sincerity as both my greatest strength and also the source of my deepest suffering. I am simply incapable of lying, and that is a profound handicap in a world of liars. Gifted liars. Lying is our national past time. It is how fortunes are made. It is how successful people succeed. It is how families operate. It is how the guilty remain free and how the free remain innocent.
I hate it, and I have become somewhat of an outcast for it, but I will not lay down my sincerity and pick up the ways of the deceiver. I do not deceive myself, which is a really hard trait to live with. Acknowledging one’s own character flaws is a real bitch. Facing down the ways in which I do not live up to my own best self every day is a tough gig. And when you’re honest with others, they are typically repulsed, as it is not the American way to fall on one’s sword of truth. You’re supposed to lie about how great you are, not tell the truth about all your challenges.
I think my way is the right way. I think my way is also the key to salvation, but I suspect I am in the minority on my thinking about that. The majority, the insincere, the proud, the accomplished, the successful egotists that perpetuate the lies, do not agree with me about the importance of the truth. They continue to elevate themselves and the kingdoms they create through lies, by lies, and upon lies. And sadly, they also continue to thrive. Perhaps I am naïve, and sincere people are always labeled naïve, but I do believe truth tellers will be rewarded. If not here, there. If not now, then.
Years ago I read “All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” Robert Fulgrum’s wise epistle to simple ways of living. I think that book should be revisited. I am always (and frequently) disheartened to see a parent who is so devoted to teaching the Golden Rule to their child, yet is loathe to follow it himself. One set of rules for the innocent children, another for the wayward adults. It’s time to submit universally—young and old alike--to the Golden Rule. It’s time to treat others the way we would wish to be treated by others. Why is that so hard?
I will die with the truth on my lips. I will die with the truth in my blood. I will die with truth in my lungs, on my hips, in my DNA, most certainly in my journals. I don’t know how else to do it. I am grateful for it. The job that remains undone for me is to learn how to coexist with those who will not do the same. And to not beat them to a pulp verbally with the truth. No one ever said life was easy. Especially for us truth-tellers.
Human Beings, Dogs and Acceptance / Teri (Eric's Mom) I adopted a dog. A 7-month old Chihuahua. I love all dogs and this one captured my heart for a number of reasons, both practical and mystical. He has a lot of spunk, and I need that at this time in my life. My older dog (13) Lucy has been a real gem. Easy to train and easy to love. Mellow and affectionate, Lucy has readily accepted all the chaos and change that has come our way these many years. She welcomed ferrets, happily mixes with all other animals and children, and is keenly aware of her master’s grief and how to sooth it. I can’t count the number of times her fur has been cried into; or the times when I would be watching a movie or reading a book and the tears would well up and Lucy would appear at my side, nudging me to pet her, because she seemed to know that her physical presence was needed. She reminded me in those moments of deep loneliness, that I was indeed never alone. My blessed Lucy.
So, now I welcome another little furry into the home and my life. Toby, the Chihuahua. He is affectionate and playful. He is respectful of Lucy and the ferrets. He likes to go for walks and enjoys sitting near or on me. I think the problem with Toby is that I see myself in this little guy. Lets just say he has his flaws.
Toby likes things his way. He is not big on giving me space when I need it. He is not big on me leaving the house without him, and shows his contempt by depositing his bodily output wherever the mood strikes. He adjusts himself at night constantly in the bed to ensure that he is always rubbing up against me. Lets say we’re having adjustment issues.
His behavior, which is really pretty endearing when you consider that he has never had a home since birth, is a lot like his master’s grief behavior. He is both open hearted and warm, and passive aggressive. He can fit in splendidly and also be a big cocklebur in my underwear. Sometimes I have the patience to train him the way he should be properly trained, and sometimes I do not. Sometimes he gets the two daily walks, and other times I just hope he has enough respect to use the doggie door and do his business independently in the two strips of garden that serve as my lawn. Rarely does this occur. It appears that Toby has set his mind on training me.
He is not friendly to strangers who come to the door. Lucy will bark to announce the arrival of an oncomer, and then immediately quiet down and assume friendship stance once I have demonstrated that the person is not necessarily a threat. Toby persists in growling, snarling, bearing his teeth, hair on end, fiercely defending. I sorta admire this, but realize it is not acceptable behavior. I didn’t adopt Napoleon. If I wanted a fierce little man with anger issues, I’d go to Match.com. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of those types perfectly willing to be entertained by a grieving mother with enablement issues. Same with the passive-aggressive elimination. Don’t really think passive-aggressive is on the menu; I was married to that for 17 years.
Yes, Little Toby’s flaws seem to be pointing up my past mistakes with males in general. I have adopted a dog who needs to have some stuff purged; just as I need to purge the memories of these exact behaviors from those I have loved; and perhaps behaviors I may have taken on inside myself. How strange.
Toby was born in Nebraska, as was I. He reminds me of a heady time in my career when my team was working on a project which involved a big publicity campaign with a well-known celebrity whose public image was that of a kind and respectful person with deep compassion; but whose private behavior was anything but. This celebrity nearly drove me to drink with his diva attitude. In the aftermath of the project, I made the comment to my colleagues that I had sworn off any and all future involvement with celebrities, which had reduced us from public relations strategists to PR chihuahua’s, nipping at the heels of this person without any real power to influence his behavior, which was kind of the point of hiring this public figure. As a result of that off-handed comment, I was awarded the “PR Chihuahua” plaque, and now it even more humorous, as once again I find myself rather useless, this time nipping at the heels of an actual chihuahua, rather than a celebrity, attempting to influence behavior, and having no real impact. Life is rich.
(And for the record, I much prefer ego battles with animals to celebrities.)
Hi From Earth / Mom Hi dear heart,
I’ll just skip the I miss you’s, ‘cause you know that already. Becky, Randy and Chase did all the hard work of getting Grandpa and Grandma’s house cleaned out. I didn’t help. I couldn’t. You understand. Objects carry memories, some bitter, some sweet. That house where I was once 13 years old, then 14, etc. I remember when I was 13. It was a very strange time in my life. New town, new school, new friends, new body. It’s hard being 13. It’s hard being 48, but at least I kinda know what to expect. At 13, you just don’t know yet that things have a way of leveling out. That life is a teeter-totter and what goes up eventually lands—either gently or with an abrupt thump. I guess you know all that and much, much more now. I have learned a lot since you left. About myself, mainly. That I am much more resilient than I ever thought. (Although, there were a few days in there where the elastic was just bare, ya know?) This healing thing contains a lot of lessons. I love learning new things, so I guess you could say I’m earning my diploma in a form of higher education, just like Chase did. The new little ferret Whitey (originally named Titas for a Roman warrior, then it became Titey-Whitey, now just Whitey) has really livened things up. At first Yogi was pulling rank, hissing and dissing the new little resident. Now, they’re best buds, and complete partners in crime. It’s so cute to watch them chuckle along, tackling each other, jumping randomly as they search for hidden treasure, the rubbery flashlight here, the hairbrush there. Whitey would appreciate your ferret in flight routine, I’m sure. Ferrets just want to have fun. Constant reminder that fun and laughter should be built into every day’s schedule. (I’m laughing, ‘cause “schedule” is a totally foreign and abhorrent concept to me now.) Love to read, love to write, love to deconstruct art. These things are beginning to define me now more than loss. That’s a good thing. I hope where you are you are being your funny, creative, inventive and completely original self. I hope you are amazing the others with your charm, wit and intelligence. I hope there is someone there who loves you as much I love you. Someone who knows how beautiful you are inside. I’m quite sure that’s the case. Drop a line sometime, okay? Your mom gets a little concerned when you go quiet for too long. I love you so much, peanut. So much.
Mom
On Purpose or Accident? / Teri (Eric's Mom) On Purpose or Accident?
This question has plagued me for four years and nearly five months now. Did my son hang himself intentionally, or did he die from the “choking game.”
Every time I asked the question, begged for the answer, fell on my knees demanding clarity, I was always given the same response: it was both.
I did not like this answer. I believed for so long that this answer contained no absolute truth, just equivocation. I felt it was my duty to understand what happened to Eric that night. Not just my duty, but my life purpose. My very sanity depended upon knowing which it was: suicide or accidental hanging.
I guess you could say I got hung up on it. In the asking, the reviewing of evidence, the endless flashbacks of our entire life, my entire life, I continued asking God the question of how my son died. What was he thinking and feeling when he took the belt and fastened it so tightly around his closet pole, took the belt and attached it to his neck, ensuring that the release was at his left hand, ready to be unfastened to stop death. His closet pole was just a few inches taller than Eric, he could have stood up and been saved. It’s called passive hanging. When a person cuts off their air supply using a device around their neck, not hanging from a suspended height, which ensures oxygen flow deprivation. Eric’s death was ruled as a suicide by hanging. That’s the evidence. But the evidence doesn’t provide any insight into Eric. None at all.
What triggered this umpteenth visit to the question was a movie I watched this weekend: The River King. It was made in 2005, the year following Eric’s death, and it is based upon an Alice Hoffman book. I enjoyed the movie, even though it is a low budget independent movie, because the main character, a teenaged boy dies and his body is found frozen in a river. It becomes the detective’s mission to understand how the boy died. Was it a suicide, which was the consensus of the private school authorities where the boy attended, or was it a murder, as was the instinct of the detective, who also happens to be a survivor of his own brother’s suicide by firearm. In the movie, lots of things are uncovered by the detective about the dead boy, his ostracism at school and the abuse he suffered from his classmates due to his unwillingness to go along with their warped, misguided sense of duty to their secret society. The boy is also abandoned by a friend, just after he is seriously humiliated and injured when the boys haze him by attempting to drown him in a toilet to teach him a lesson about adhering to the rules of the secret society, which the boy refused to accept. The end of the movie seems to imply that the detective has uncovered the truth that the boy did indeed jump to his death, that is was indeed a self death. Apparently, this is NOT what the book portrayed. Alice Hoffman made it clear in the book that the boy died in the hazing/toilet incident and the boys made it appear as if it was a suicide. In the book, the boy who spearheaded the hazing and was responsible the boy’s death suffered consequences. In the movie, the detective, upon discovering that the boy had written a suicide note to the girl who had betrayed his friendship, decided to allow her to believe that it had been an accident. He spared her the truth. Knowing what the truth would bring to her life, the guilt she would experience upon knowing that the boy had killed himself partially due to her uncharacteristic callousness toward him that night, the detective said the boy had slipped and fell into the river. He did it to spare her a life of guilt. He did it because he had experienced a life of guilt due to his own brother’s suicide, aided by a trick the older boy had played upon the younger one, to crawl into a window and retrieve a gun so that the older boy “could go hunting.” He did not want the gun to go hunting, he used it to kill himself.
The grown detective still harbored tremendous guilt over that innocent gesture he had performed for his brother. He felt responsible because he had secured the gun his big brother used to kill himself. So, the detective destroyed the suicide note that had been written to the girl to spare her a life of guilt. To me, the movie really got to heart of this kind of death and what it brings to the surviving loved ones. A life of guilt, even if you don’t have the blessing of a note.
I had not read the book, so I did not know how Hoffman’s story had originally been told. I did go to IMBD, as I often do, to see what other viewers thought about the movie. The ones who had not read the book liked the movie and how it ended, with the detective sparing the truth from the friend who had betrayed the boy, and in doing so, essentially pushed him emotionally over the edge. The ones who had read the book were outraged by the film makers re-interpretation of the book. How could the film makers completely change the story, they incensed? How could they destroy the boy’s character like that; he never would have killed himself. He was a fighter. They hated the way in which the film makers decided to put an entirely different spin on a very tragic death. They failed to understand, it seemed to me, that anyone would be inclined toward self death after experiencing the shame, humiliation and degradation that had been wrested upon this boy by his so-called classmates.
I was really angry at these IMBD people. I mean, these are characters in a film. Do they realize that real people have to deal with mysterious deaths and never get to know the truth about it? Apparently not. Apparently these folks don’t understand the difference between life and art. I do. I very much understand that death comes, tragedy arrives, and it controls the situation. The humans do not control anything about it at all. Try as they may in the aftermath to uncover the secret, lonely detectives of their own lives, sometimes, as in my life, the truth is never known. When the truth cannot be known, it becomes necessary to accept the unknown. Accept the hideous. Accept that the unacceptable can and does occur in real life. Art often has this affect on me. It underscores how little real people understand and appreciate about tragedy. I used to be one of those people; people who learned about life through art. I am still a person who learns about life from art; but the lessons I take from art are very different from those taken from the uninitiated. And the difference in opinions from the two camps hurt.
It was during the aftermath of Eric’s death, these four years and five months, that I have gradually learned to accept that Eric was indeed the victim of both a suicide and an accidental hanging.
It goes to feelings. It goes to emotional turmoil. It goes to depletion of hope and faith. Depletion of reservoirs of God-given life force. I too have fallen victim to the wholesale evacuation of hope, faith and love in these years and months. I now do know what this psychic pain feels like, and I can now understand that taking of your own life is very much accidental. It is an accident that causes death, but stops pain. It is NOT a character deficiency. It is about pain. How much pain can a person tolerate when there is no ingestible, injectable, or topical remedy?
Whenever I learn about another person whose life has been lost in this manner, by depletion of hope, faith and love, I know it is a self death. A lot of times, it is reported as an “accidental death” by drug overdose, such as in Heath Ledger’s case (an Australian and a beautiful actor, and such a sensitive soul, but in my mind, yes, a suicide). I do not consider a suicide by gun, or hanging, or jumping, to be any different. But those deaths are always ruled as suicides. The drug overdoses are carefully studied and then frequently ruled as accidental deaths. I find it completely irrational, and harmful, to differentiate the two. Why give some parents the ultimate gift of a coroner’s report saying “accidental death” and others the life burden of “suicide?” Why even make a distinction? The person ingested a combination of drugs and/or alcohol that he or she rationally understood could kill h/her, so isn’t that a suicide? If we’re being rational and logical, it seems so abundantly clear to me that is as much a suicide as those suffering people who used a fire arm, plastic bag, rope or belt, or jumped from a building or bridge.
In the end, it is this emotional/psychic pain that is the culprit. It is the pain that caused the deed; not the final action. The reason beyond the method is what caused the action.
Why does it matter? Oh, believe me, it matters. Among the surviving family members, it is the most important factor of their loved one’s death. Was it an accident, or was it on purpose? This is the nub that gets debated, or conversely, serves as the elephant in the room that never gets mentioned, but is always present. If the death is ruled as accidental, grief reconciliation is easier to achieve. The guilt can be assuaged. If it is suicide, there’s the God awful stigma that makes for a very, very rough road to negotiate. And the guilt. Suicidal deaths, like no other variety, bring forward the guilt. The guilt. The guilt. The guilt. Why can’t a person make another person feel better? Why. Why. Why. Can’t be answered. Trust me, I’ve tried. Extensively.
For those of us who don’t know the “truth” about our loved one’s motives, it falls to us to dig deeper. I intended to understand. It was my road. I had to know why Eric did what he did, and I had to take full responsibility for the possibility that I had failed him that day. Perhaps I had failed him his entire life. I don’t think so. In these past four years and five months, I have devoted myself to reviewing his life. Our life. I did not fail him. I did know he suffered from slim reservoirs of hope and faith. I did know he was an impulsive child who sometimes engaged in risky behavior. I pulled in the help of professionals to address these reservoir issues. I worked diligently to build up his reservoirs, to build him up. I loved him with every molecule of my being.
Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to save Eric. That in itself is a pretty big thing to live with. It wasn’t enough. What would have been enough to save him? What could have been done differently that would have made the difference between life and death?
The point of these guilt-inducing questions is that they can’t be answered. The point of the inward journey of understanding why is that ultimately, I won’t know why until I get to where Eric is. I can’t wait, frankly, to be with him again. To finally know the truth. To finally get my penultimate explanation. Why did God give me Eric, the love of my life, and then take him away so soon?
I don’t regret the exhaustive, painful, lonely, heartbreakingly honest examination of my past. I don’t regret the battles I fought with God. I don’t regret my own depletion of reservoirs that the examination sometimes exacted. It was my path to take. It is my path to take.
What I want to give to Eric’s friends and family that read his living memorial is that life requires a constant eye upon your reservoirs of hope, faith and love. These are the only things that really matter to live a full and meaningful life: hope, faith and love. Keep them at operating levels. When they are low, get help. Ask for it. Talk about it. It’s not shameful to get a low gas tank. It is not shameful to admit that you’re lacking in hope. You’re doubting the presence of a higher power. You can’t/won’t/don’t know how to love. These reservoirs are not static, they are always changing. One day’s complete lack of love, faith and hope can be the springboard for the next day’s tank being filled a bit. If you’re willing to look inside the tank to see where you are; eventually the looking becomes habitual and you begin to know which thing you need and how to get it. You begin to be certain about your own needs. That’s a beautiful thing.
Admittedly, it is a lot easier said then done. I myself spend a lot of time in solitude, quiet reflection, meditation and prayer. I read and watch art that uplifts me because it is emotionally raw. In fact, the things I do that help me have faith and hope are sometimes irritating to others, and are even seen as anti-social and maladaptive. I don’t care what they think. I have learned that for me, it is what I need to stay alive with hope and faith. I take strength from others who suffer. Because of what I have learned, and because of my honesty, I give them hope and faith. I do not give them platitudes. I do not give them false hope. This grief path from a self-death of a your own child isn’t something that you get over in a year or two. It lasts a lifetime. I don’t mince words over something this important.
I get depleted by people who are dishonest, mean spirited, egotistical or overly materialistic. I have had to relearn how to fill my tanks because I changed overnight. Before, being a mother was what fueled my tanks. Eric was the source of my hope, faith and love. In an instant, a few minutes time here on Earth, he wasn’t. Then I learned about eternal life (and believe me, the education was excruciating, not a walk in the park, at all). I learned that Eric was/is indeed still with me, and gradually, he helped me find my way again.
I had to live in the dark for so long, that I became familiar with it. Made friends with it, even. Learned how to live with only empty tanks. No faith, no hope, no love. I learned that a person can’t stay in this state. It is not what we’re about. People need the light. Not all at once, mind you. Tiny flickers and cracks of light is all I can stand. Don’t flood me with your optimism and faith, please. (Although dark humor is always appreciated.) I have learned that I do not want to be embraced and surrounded by Positive Patsys of life. They are really obnoxious. Give me the people who have seen better days, and now are experiencing the flip side. Life is about duality, so don’t give me a mono-light-lover, dark avoider. (Most of these happy, happy positive people are really just faking it, have you noticed? They don’t like honesty, or reality, but they love to be positive. Vomit.)
Ever so slowly and with great caution, I’ve noticed that I’ve let some light in again. I’m not about spontaneity and gaiety in my life anymore. And yes, I do mourn that loss. But I also embrace a new me, the me who lives life in the very, very deep end of the pool. I swims slowly, and I am deliberately appreciative of the very tiny gifts of animals, art and my inner life. I have a rich, full inner life. It’s more than OK to be a loner, a person who likes solitude. The trick of being a hermit is to enjoy your own company. I quite like the me who has grown gills and who rarely needs to surface for air.
I no longer ask the question, was my son’s death an accidental hanging or was it a suicide? It was both.
(P.S. This was written with paragraphs, but this web site won’t cooperate by acknowledging them. Aargh.)
Dear Teri- / Martha Stevens
Bowing my head for your boy,again.
Love,
Martha,Mom to Ian
A Documentary Film: Boy Interrupted / Teri (Eric's Mom) Documentary film-maker Dana Heinz Perry has told the story of her son Evan Perry, who ended his life by jumping out of a window in his New York apartment at age 15. Evan had bipolar disorder. His parents, long time video and film makers, decided to stand up and tell this devastating story through a documentary film that was shown at this year's Sundance Film Festival and is scheduled to air on HBO. Evan, like our Eric, was a boy of vibrance. Energetic, creative, handsome and articulate. Evan was also mentally ill. Like our boy Eric, Evan seemed to be a pioneer in this age of childhood mental illness. Like our boy Eric, he was treated for his disorder. Poorly. From a medical standpoint, Dana Heinz Perry believes children who carry this stigma of mental illness are victims of a medical establishment that know nothing about mental illness, and the children who are their patients are subjected to treatments that are as archaic as those used in the middle ages. I look forward to seeing the film, despite the fact that the 30-second promotion of it made me sob. Perhaps more than anyone, I do understand I the pain these parents have experienced telling their beautiful child's story; coupled with the bittersweet irony that this film has been accepted into Sundance, a supreme achievement for a film-maker, and such a horrific way to get there. Perry addresses this in this interview she conducted on radio.
Young Evan wanted to follow in his parents' footsteps and become a film maker himself. "He wasn't going to make boring documentaries, though," his mother says.
From a personal standpoint, and from my observation that there really appear to be no coincidences in life, I am struck by several things about this family. 1) the boy's name, Evan, is the name of my nephew; and also the name of one of twins I knew in college (Eric's father is a twin). 2) Perry, the family's last name, is also the last name of my best friend in high school, whose first name is Terri. The remaining similarities to me are too obvious and heartbreakingly evident. In this film, Perry describes some of the "supernatural" experiences that occurred during Evan's funeral.
Here is the link to Dana Perry's radio interview, where she describes the movie Boy Interrupted and its inspiration: Evan Perry.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited/2008/12/28/MGU
I do not know when the film is airing on HBO. They are promoting it as an upcoming feature, however the HBO web site has no listing of this film. I'll update when I know the details. I think this film is so very important.
Hollywood and the Domino Affect / Teri (Eric's Mom) Lots of people believe the downfall of our economy can be attributed to the lies and greed of Wall Street and Washington. I am one of them. I also get a lot of "truth" from that same phenomenon in Hollywood. If you follow the comings and goings of celebrities, you're aware of the current "trend" among these stars who go to elaborate measures to conceal their true identity in order to secure the type of "image" that will result in meaty roles and hefty paychecks. Namely, it's still not cool to be gay, to be "out" in a town where the population does not mirror the typical 10% gay; more like 90% gay. Which I have no problem with at all. A person's sexuality is WHO THEY ARE. There's no shame whatsoever in being who you are. The shame comes in LYING about who you are; and then in manufacturing all kinds of facades and charades to cover up who you really are---all in the name of "credibility" with mainstream America. Well, I am "mainstream." I am a hereto woman, born in Nebraska, reared in Kansas and settled in Colorado. I never made a 6-figure income. I worked hard. I was a wife, a mother, a career woman. I have no problem with a person's sexuality. I don't care if Jake Gyllenhal is gay or not. I would watch his movies if he was out. I love Ellen. I think she's the bomb and admire her relationship with Portia. I feel that "mainstream" America has engaged in more lies and deceit and coverups than Hollywood. If my own life isn't a testament to that, than I don't know what is. My marriage was a scam. I just didn't know it. I was never lucky enough to be brought in on the secret. Being a honest person, a person who has no prejudice about a person's sexual identify, and also being a compassionate person, I believe my life and my son's life would have been a LOT different had I been entrusted with the truth. But this is something I will never know. And it is the only truth that I have left. That I will never know the true circumstances of my own life. I do know that there is not one person on this planet that could have "handled" the truth better than I. So I do follow the lies and deceit and cover ups and consequences of Washington, Wall Street and Hollywood. It is America. When all is said and done, lies and deceit and cover ups do a lot more damage than bring a country to its knees economically. They kill. And I suppose that's why reading the news, be it the front page or the lifestyle section, is a hell of lot more painful for me than it is for most people.
Happy Valentine's Day / Mom This poem is for you, dear heart, and for Carol and her precious Dustin, forever 16, the football star>>>>>>>>>>>
VALENTINE MESSAGE
~author unknown
I send this message to my child
who no longer walks this plane,
A message filled with LOVE
Yet also filled with PAIN.
My Heart continues to skip a beat
When I ponder your early death.
Valentine's Day is for those who Love
And for those who receive Love, too
For a parent the perfect Love in Life
Is the Love I've given you.
I'm thinking of you this day, my child
With a sadness that is unspoken
As I mark another Valentine's Day
With a Heart THAT IS FOREVER BROKEN.
Wordless, USA / Teri (Eric's Mom) One of the ways in which I have always coped with life’s obstacles is to share with others. My co-workers were always so much more to me than merely the people with whom I worked. When my obstacles were ‘normal’ life stressors, I unburdened them on my friends, and they unburdened theirs on me, and by doing so, we lightened each others loads. What a blessing was my career and the truly remarkable people I walked beside each day. For several years, one of projects for which my coworkers and I toiled was on behalf of the cause of illiteracy. We immersed ourselves in the world of adult illiterates, who managed life without the benefit of being able to read beyond a third grade education. My heart overflowed with compassion for people who lived in a rich society without the richness of vocabulary.
Now, my peers are women like me; childless mothers, a cause for which I am also fully engaged and absorbed. A cause I know all too well. We suffer so much. Not only did our child die; but our child died by his/her own hand, and this is a life burden that is so Herculean in weight, almost no one from the “regular world” can comprehend how impossibly heavy it is to carry. For this giant chasm that has been created between myself and “normal” people, I am grateful; as grateful as I would be if no child would ever again die in this horrific manner. I pray each day that no mother will have to experience this type of tragedy, a hideous event that has repeated itself since the dawn of mankind. God hears not my prayers, because every day, indeed every 16 minutes in this country alone, another child dies by his or her own hand; another mother is presented with the keys to the City of the Damned. The grief this leaves in its wake is indescribable. I am not a widow or widower, I am a mother whose child, age 12 years + two days, took his own life with a belt. In all the generations who have gone before me, all the mothers and fathers who suffered the aftermath of this one moment where their child made the most audacious mistake imaginable, no one has ever done the kindness of creating a word, a label, to categorize to the “outside world” what has happened. No one in history has ever stopped to imagine how painful it is to say “My child is dead.” One simple word to describe the horror has never been added to the lexicon. When a spouse dies, a person becomes a widow or widower. Those who carry this label often detest it, yet they have been awarded the dignity, at least, of having a word to describe their life circumstance. In my own heart and mind, I call myself a foremother; before my precious child made that one error in judgment, that one specific moment in time that forever altered so many lives, I was a mother. Now I am not. I am a foremother.
We inherit the words suicide survivor. What have we survived? I have not survived anything. I am in near constant misery, so how is it that the word “survive” could ever be used to describe me? My son gets to be “one who committed suicide.” Committed, like in commit a crime. No, that moniker does not fit my boy. He was not a criminal. Eric was a child who did a stupid thing. Even the word suicide rubs me like sandpaper. Is that what Eric did---did he kill? Suicide sounds to me just like homicide or infanticide, meaning violent acts of killing. No, that word suicide does not square with me. My son’s life ended by his own hand. This is how I frame it, on those horrid, dreadful occasions when I am asked “how did Eric die?” This is the question that follows the stabbing innocent, natural question, “do you have children?” Seemingly, the most natural inquiry, yes, but capable of rendering me into a puddle of tears, or worse, running away, the mere question an additional assault upon my withering, wretched, reeking soul.
Saying the words “my son died by his own hand” does not help ease my burden. It rarely brings about any kindness or understanding from “normal” people who live their lives out in the world, their shoulders barely noticing their regular, everyday life burdens. Sometimes, when I am blessed, my words of explanation warrant a response of pity or sympathy or kindness from my comrades. More frequently they solicit complete and total discomfort among those whose shoulders are so painfully weak and narrow that they crack under the minor weight of another’s words. So thin and weak and fragile and sterile are these folks, that they actually experience discomfort at my plight, preferring not to experience, second hand, such unpleasantness. Most normal people are disgusted by the mere mention of what I bear….so naturally I loathe them, pity them and their weak inability to confront, console and consider. These weaklings prefer to pretend that life is all just roses and sunshine and please don't dampen my doorstep with your disfigured reality. Their perfectly unblemished shoulders make me want to vomit. In all honesty, this is just another symptom of my disease. But in order to spead the wealth, I like to assume it is their disease as well. The disease of dispassion. The disease of disingenuousness. The disease of denial. I hope they survive their disease without too much discomfort.
Words are pointless. If the point of words is to communicate and bond in common life experience, my experience has been that they do not. These words---death of a child; suicide; survivor. How about the sterile word "bereavement." Please, these are empty words. Hollow. Empty. Void. Just like the arms of a mother whose child has been placed into the cold, hard ground. Empty. Just like the phone mailbox of the mom who's son will not be calling. Empty. Words are quite meaningless, unless the recipient is willing to hear them. Willing to listen. Willing to bear a little discomfort in exchange for wisdom...wisdom born of pain. One person's pain becomes another's gratitude, when courage is brought into the equation. Gratitude for the tiny burdens that can be placed into context only with the bravery of joining the very real war of life. Words are irrelevant. Ears, listening ears, well, they're indispensable.
Maybe that’s why a word doesn’t exist for me, or for the other mothers who have become my friends, my confidantes, the mothers who do know how deformed my shoulders have become from carrying this burden of my son’s death. My shoulders have grown muscle, it’s true. It hurt, that growth that widened them, stretching them painfully over weakened bone, the flesh bloody and bruised and torn and raw. My shoulders are loathe to grow any more, yet they continue to. Every 16 minutes my shoulders must be broadened to welcome another mother on this path, this hideous journey whose landscape does not contain beauty. This path is littered with trash, stinking heaping mounds of regret. Rivers of guilt. Mountains of blame. Fields of unanswered questions. The stench of this filth fills its travelers with sick, silent dreadful longing for before. Longing not only for those outstretched arms of the child we bore, the child we nurtured and comforted and calmed and adored. We are so deformed, so misshapen have we become, that we long, desperately for the person we used to be; the women whose shoulders were in proportion to her hips, the hips that bore the child who has vanished. We mothers with our twisted buckled shoulders were once just normal sized. We grieve for that former woman who was not mutilated and mangled; crippled by the weight of what is now ours to carry. Our child’s mistake has become our formidable and oppressive anchor. We drag, pull, carry, cajoling and cursing its toilsome presence. To abandon the anchor would be tantamount to abandoning the child. The anchor is paramount; without it, I am not even a foremother. Without it, I am nothing. Without it, Eric is nothing. So continue to drudge, I must. Broaden the bloody back, I shall. Walk the path, I will. With quiet dignity, and loud indignity. I limp along a road inside a city that I only wish had fewer occupants, but pray for the occasional brave visitor, ears intact and shoulder's braced.
its been way too long. four years and many painfull days. we all miss you soo much. im sure we would have become closer if we had known each other longer. i miss walking over after school and sledding with you and jasmine (even if you did manage to get close to frostbite). i miss playing Yatzee and watching mojo skateboard.
as im sure you know mojo joined you just before thanks giving. i hope you two will watch over each other. im sorry ive changed so much over these years. ive made many mistakes and few achievements. i still have your memorial pinned over my bed, and your picture next to mine on my mirror.
ian and i came up to your to-be-skate-park the other day. it hasnt changed a bit. and you couldnt have found a better place. Eric, i am not a spiritual person. but im sure your up there. and i would just like to ask you to not forget about me. i will try to be a better person. for you. i miss you so much. you were the best of us. you have had such a profound effect on my life. thank you. tell Yogi i say hi.
Miss you, love you,
Jack.
Letter to my boy/man--ban, moy / Mom Hi sweet one,
It's been a long week. A long year already, and how can that be, the year only just began. Without you, every day seems like its own eternity. I feel sick all the time. Just like when I was pregnant and you were in my tummy, waiting to be born. Nauseous, like I need to throw up. No, silly, I'm too old to be preggers. Already had "the change" after you left. It's not nice, this constant sick. It would be, if I knew I was dying of something and that soon I would join you and we could be ourselves again, only without the worries of the world. Just happy selves, like the good 'ole days. I hate this constant sick because it reminds me of you, and when you were a baby, and I was so happy to have a little newborn and the world was fresh and you were all the hope of goodness to come. You, the little baby Eric, represented freshness. Your little tiny fingers and your little tiny toes and your little furrowed brow were so precious to me and your father. You were such a bundle of joy. I never felt such peace and love and joy and hope as I did when you would cry to be fed and I would happily get up out of bed to nurse my new little miracle. I loved to rock you and sing to you...hush little baby, don't say a word, momma's gonna buy you a mocking bird....and you would nurse and your eyelids would get heavier and heavier, happily fed and sleepy, my new little baby Eric. Life was so full of promise then. You nursed slowly, allowing time to fill up your belly, and I was glad...if that mocking bird won't sing, momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring..... I made notes of how long I fed you (I still have those notes) and how long you nursed on each side. I wanted to keep a record of every minute of your precious life....if that diamond ring turns glass, momma's gonna buy you a looking glass. You were so beautiful and you smelled so sweet....if that looking glass gets broke, momma's gonna buy you a billy goat....Every little thing that you did made me smile. I kept you alive through the miracle of my own body, and you were my special little baby, and I just couldn't believe that you were mine....if that billy goat won't pull, momma's gonna buy you a cart and bull. I was such a proud momma. I loved you so much...if that cart and bull fall down, you'll still be the sweetest little boy in town. My love for you continued to grow as did you... stronger and stronger, and Eric, it gets stronger still. Even though you are not here with me. My love for you does not diminish. Though I cannot picture you beyond 13 years of age, my love does not stop at 13. Even with my dying breath I will love you. I suspect that when I am in my grave, I will love you. That is what I do. Love Eric every day, every hour, every minute, every second. So the nausea isn't really what ails me, though it is a nuisance. What ails me is your absence. Sometimes, when you come to me in a dream, or when I am a successful meditator, it is as if you and I are still together, and that this thing that happened did not happen. It is just like you and me when the world was something I could count on. When I knew that the Earth was round, that the sun rose in the East and set in the West and that Eric was my son and these things could be counted on yesterday, today and tomorrow. Now I do not know that birds will always sing, that the sun will rise and set and that there are basic things that all human beings count on as real and reliable and solid. I no longer have the assurance of solids. Nothing for me can be measured or fixed or counted upon as consistent in life. Only death is consistent. And taxes. Ha. I joke. I guess you can count upon Mom to joke, even in the direst of circumstances. This, my boy, is a solid. I'm smiling at that. I guess you can count upon the young ferrets to chuckle and jump and be frisky. This is something that makes my days brighter than darker. A ferret's chuckle, and his musky smell (that most people think reek, but you and I, well, we perceive a ferret's pungent musky aroma as sweeter than the finest Parisian cologne.) These things I know about you are constant, they are solid. I can grab ahold of what I do know and love about you and I can reckon it is a constant, a solid. I can picture your grin and it makes me sob.....I am bawling now like a baby because I can picture it in my mind's eye, but it is not a solid....I guess you are now my liquid. I miss you my boy, my most precious of all beings, the one who made me understand the real meaning of the word love. Eric is Love, and that is a solid. By, by, for now....I must stop and cry. Perhaps you will visit me in a dream. Maybe my sick stomach will go away now. I wish you did not go away from the world, because you went away from me. Now I am not me anymore. I am only the mother who lost her son....her sun. I suspect the dead do not feel guilt, so I figure this letter will not render you sad. For that I am glad. For that I shall say: ha, you mothers who stir my envy with your living children, ha, my boy no longer ever has to feel sadness, or pain, or doubt, or fear, or anger, or anything that your living boys must feel. For that, I am a lucky mother. My boy is safe and sound and your boys are merely alive on Earth. Earth can be a very dangerous and cruel place for the boys whose hearts are fragile and tender. For the ones, like Eric, who feel so much. My boy is safe. That is a solid, isn't it, Eric?
My heart to your heart,
my love to yours,
mom
An Artful Tapestry / Mom When Eric was in 6th grade, he had to take home ec. Like any guy, initially, he thought it was pretty lame. But, operating a sewing machine turned out to be his forte. The 1950s Singer machine his grandma Grove had given us years before turned into a hobby, and he sewed lots of stuff on it. When I read this little story, it made my heart hurt. Maybe Eric is the angel who sews the tapestries of people's lives? <<<<<<<<<<<
As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls.
Before each of us, our lives were laid out, like the cloth squares of a quilt, in many piles. An angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that represented our entire life.
As my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares looked. They were filled with giant holes. Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult; the challenges and temptations I had faced in life every day. The hardships I had endured were the largest holes of all.
I glanced around me. Nobody else had such squares. Other than a tiny hole here and there, the other tapestries were filled with rich color, the bright hues of worldly fortune. I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened.
Like binding air, my angel sewed together the ragged pieces of cloth that seemed threadbare and empty.
The time came when each life had to be displayed and held up to the light--the scrutiny of truth. The others rose, each person holding up their own tapestries; so filled their lives had been. My angel looked up and nodded for me to rise.
My gaze dropped to the ground in shame. I hadn't possessed all the earthly fortunes. I had possessed love and laughter in my life, but there had also been trials of illness, wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world. I had needed to start over many times. I had often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to muster the strength to pick up and begin again. I had also spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life. I had often endured ridicule. But each time I had offered my pain up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt beneath the judgmental gaze of other people.
But now I had to face the truth. My life was what it was, and I had to accept it for what it was.
I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light.
An awe-filled gasp filled the air. I gazed around at the others who stared at me with wide eyes.
Then, I looked upon the tapestry before me. Light flooded the many holes, creating an image: the face of Christ.
Then the Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes. He said, "Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles. Each point of light in your life represents each time you stepped aside and let Me shine through until there was more of Me than there was of you."
May all our quilts be threadbare and worn, allowing Christ to shine through!
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