It has been nearly 9 months since Jamie chose to leave us. They say time heals, but I wouldn’t say I am exactly finding that to be true. In fact, most days I would argue that it is quite the opposite. Sure. I am learning to live with his absence. I mean, what choice did he give me in the matter anyways? But it seems that the consequences of his suicide are never ending; even nine months later every day presents a new emotion and a new challenge. I still feel sad, confused, lonely, betrayed, and mad. At this point in my journey though, guilt continues to be my biggest obstacle.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the things I did or didn’t say to Jamie; the things I could have done or not done when I was trying to help him. Even after months of therapy with a psychiatrist who has helped me to better understand the mind of an alcoholic with clinical depression, it is hard to not place blame on myself for not doing enough. My psychiatrist has assured me over and over that guilt is a normal feeling after the death of a loved one by suicide, so I try to not let it consume me. Deep down I know that only Jamie was responsible for his actions and I know that falsely placing any blame on myself will only take me down the same rabbit hole as him.

That’s not the only kind of guilt I am talking about though. Guilt now lives in everything I do. It’s like a little devil that sits on my shoulder and wherever I go, it goes. In my moments of peace and solitude I can hear it whispering in my ear. In my moments of happiness and joy, it raises its voice, snarls its teeth, and screams at me. Through suicide loss I have learned that there is a different kind of strength that lives inside of all of us if only we seek it out. Most days I can find it and I am strong enough to shut down the voices of guilt that try to rob me of my peace. Other days I am weak, I cave, and I surrender to it. I let the little devil on my shoulder win and have its way with me. I cry, I scream, and I beg for answers that I will never get no matter how far into this grief journey I go.

(I am going to back up a little bit so just hang in here with me for a minute). In the immediate aftermath of Jamie’s suicide, we all did whatever we had to do in order to simply survive. My brother Chad went back to his home in Texas and jumped head first into supporting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). He fundraised a lot of money in a very short amount of time (thanks again to any of you reading this that donated) and he, his wife, and his daughter walked in the South Texas Chapter’s Out of Darkness Walk at Baylor University. After that he began following the AFSP’s South Texas Chapter to see what else he could do to get involved. However, it didn’t take long for the AFSP to disappoint us.

Chad called me at work one afternoon and he was just beside himself. He wasn’t just mad, he was livid, and the f word was flying wild and free that day. He had caught wind that the AFSP South Texas Chapter was organizing a Trivia Bar Crawl for one of their fundraising events. Wait. What? A bar crawl? For suicide prevention? Seriously? Our brother, Jamie, (like thousands of others that take their own lives) was an alcoholic that literally drank himself right into suicide. I was as equally mad, sick, and just outright heartbroken over this organized Trivia Bar Crawl as he was. How could the AFSP support and promote binge drinking while raising money for suicide prevention and awareness?? Statistics by the AFSP themselves show that over a quarter of all suicides in the US involve alcohol and that suicide is 120 times more prevalent among alcoholics. So, where exactly was the logic in hosting a fundraising event of this nature??? Unfortunately for the AFSP South Texas Chapter, my brother Chad has no problem voicing his opinion. He contacted them immediately and expressed his concern over the event. They didn’t cancel the event, but they did show us the respect of changing the images on their Facebook Event page to something other than cartoon characters belly up to the bar cheers’ing each other with beer mugs. So, thank you, by the way, to the AFSP South Texas Chapter for at least doing that. Don’t get me wrong. The AFSP does a lot of good things and I am glad that they exist. If you are a supporter of them or you volunteer for them in any capacity, I sincerely thank you. I am not sharing this story to offend anyone that is involved with them. I am just saying that the event rubbed us the wrong way and since that day we have chosen to not financially support the AFSP anymore than what we already had up to that point.

The good that came from that unfortunate event was that it was also the day we decided we could either be whiners or we could be doers. You see there are two types of people in this world; the kind that like to complain about everything around them and do nothing to change it and then there are the kind of people that don’t like the way things are around them, so they take the initiative to DO something about it; hence, whiners or doers. I told Chad that day to forget the AFSP. I told him we don’t have to support them. We could start our own foundation and do things the way we want to do them. That’s where our little dream of starting a foundation in our brother’s name began.

We sat on it for a few months and kind of let the idea just be. As the days turned into weeks, I was finding that it was all I could think about. For the first time since Jamie’s suicide I felt excited about something. I started talking to Chad about it more, then other family members, and finally a dear, dear friend I grew up with that is an attorney. Suddenly dreaming has turned into doing and we are well on our way to starting The JBR Foundation with plans to launch late spring/early summer 2019!

There is a difference in life between having a career and having a calling. I have a great career. I have worked in the staffing/recruiting industry for almost 14 years for the same family owned company. I adore my owners and I am 98.99% sure they adore me too. But having a great career isn’t enough sometimes. For those of you that know me well, you already know that I have said for years that I love my job and I can’t imagine doing anything else, but I still feel unfulfilled in life. It’s because I have had a career, but I haven’t found my calling. Until now.

I honestly feel like for the first time in my life I have figured out my purpose. THIS is what I have been waiting to do; The JBR Foundation IS my life’s calling. Everything inside of me is telling me so. As my heart fills with excitement about fulfilling this dream of starting a non-profit in Jamie’s name, the little devil on my shoulder has started screaming again, louder than ever. It’s filling my mind and my heart full of self-doubt and full of guilt. How dare I find my life’s calling as a result of my brother’s suicide? I have lost sleep over it, I have cried over it, and I have prayed over it. Recently, I spoke to my Mom about it. I explained to her the guilt I am feeling and just like always, she had the perfect things to say and share.

She sent me this excerpt from a book she is reading by Paul David Tripp called Suffering. “Your suffering isn’t purposeless, impersonal pain that robs you of what’s good. It’s a tool picked by a Savior of wisdom, love, and grace to produce wonderful things in and through you that you could never produce on your own. In your pain he proves that he’s near and working to take what’s discouragingly painful and intolerably hard and produce out of it a harvest of good things. He works so that your faith and hope will blossom, your character will change and mature, and your willingness and ability to minister to others will increase. He isn’t emptying you of good things but using hardship to fill you with the good things that only his grace can produce. So you can say with hope and joy, even while you acknowledge the pain of suffering and loss, ‘Yes, there is purpose in my suffering, because God takes it as a tool in his hands to do things in and through me, things that are profoundly valuable and eternally good – so good that he’s willing to take me to hard places to deliver these treasures’. In your suffering, run, run, run, to the comfort of God’s purpose. If you do, day after day you’ll be glad you did”.

Thank you, Mom, for always knowing the right things to say.

I know that guilt will live with me forever. It’s just one of the many consequences of a loved one’s suicide; part of that dreadful life sentence that we have been handed. But that doesn’t mean I have to let guilt win or control my life. I won’t. I know that sharing my brother’s story through my blog and his foundation is exactly what I am being called to do. There is purpose in this pain, and sometimes I even like to think that Jamie himself is helping God to orchestrate all of this. For one, he loved being the center of attention so what better way to do that than to have a foundation named after you!! (I kid, kind of… he would have loved the attention). More than that, I like to think that helping me find my life’s calling is Jamie’s last gift to me. And for that, I am willing to walk through this suffering and use it to do good things.

Thank you, brother. I love you. I miss you and I promise The JBR Foundation will be something that you would be proud of.

XOXO - Jennifer

National Hotline for Suicide Prevention: 1-800-273-TALK