HARRISONBURG, Va. (Mennonite Mission Network) -- When Joy Derck's brother died by suicide, one of her daughters was attending a junior-high Christian school. A student told her daughter that her uncle was in hell. "That was really devastating," recalled Derck.

Derck, of Elizabethtown, Pa., was interviewed for the upcoming TV documentary (as are all of the other people in this article) that Mennonite Media is producing with Faith & Values Media, to premiere on Hallmark Channel, Fierce Goodbye: Living in the Shadow of Suicide.

But it is not only children who say upsetting things after a death by suicide. The church in general has ostracized families of suicide victims or otherwise shamed those grieving suicide into silence.

Stephen Akinduro of Columbus, Ga., lost his mother by suicide when he was just nine years old. As a teen, he went to religious leaders for help. They told him, "Just go home and pray," and implied he wasn't reading the Bible enough.

"It made me kind of resentful toward God for quite a long time," says Stephen. "The grief of suicide eats up people.  I didn't talk about it for almost 12, 13 years.  I started engaging in very self-destructive behavior, just being very rebellious. Some friends started to talk to me about this loving God. That just didn't compute." 

Roger Steffy, who pastored a Mennonite church in Pennsylvania where a treasurer took his life, said, "I think there's been a correlation between depression and a perceived lack of spiritual strength, or faith. If a person really had faith in God, then they wouldn't be depressed, is the logic. It's flawed logic, but it's popular thinking."

Fortunately for Stephen, after a few years, he knew that keeping silent wasn't working.  So in his early 20s he decided to get medical assistance and help through a support group. His journey also included rediscovering his faith and God's abiding love (see complete story at http://www.fiercegoodbye.com under Faith Communities Respond to Suicide/One Man's Faith Journey).

Some responses on the part of friends, church or family are well-intentioned but misplaced. "Sometimes people want to tell you how to grieve, what to do, what not to do," said Jill Marks, a holistic counselor in Minneapolis, whose depressed daughter ended her own life. "Some families want to get rid of things and clean things up right away, and some want to leave things the way they are for a long time."

Another family survivor, Doris Smith, co-founder of the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide, explained that she received comfort from some friends and family members. "But there were others who shunned me, never mentioned my son's name or would make unhelpful statements, such as 'He's in a better place, don't cry.' One person told me after two weeks I needed to be 'on with it.'" 

Also difficult to deal with are widespread but erroneous impressions that "there's shame in having a suicide in your family, that it's something you shouldn't talk about," Marks said. "So survivors are carrying a deep, dark secret, which makes it even harder. A lot of people made comments that showed that they didn't fully understand. That was painful and hard because they judged Jami [her daughter]."

Church members need to understand when suicide survivors don't feel like going to church for awhile. While some find solace and comfort in a larger church community, others do not.  "I could not go to church for quite a long time," said Gail Fox, an educator from Harrisonburg, Va., whose young adult son died by suicide.  "I tried and thought I was absolutely going to stand up and scream if I didn't get out of that building." She got through the service, but "I was still so angry, I just could not sit there."

Survivors themselves are especially vulnerable to depression and thoughts of suicide. The reasoning goes, "If my brother could do it, what if I ended up doing that too?" Derck felt at first that she was going to be okay. Acute grief was followed by depression. "It was tough. I would sit at church and usually just cry, but I couldn't go to Sunday school because that was more of an intimate group."

Unfortunately, often clergy and everyone else get too busy to minister long-term after suicide. Steffy said, "I've talked with people whose pastor did not visit them after the first week or so after the death.  There wasn't ongoing kind of care or sense of understanding."

"There's very little training for ministers in this sort of thing," observed Fred Fox, an orthopedic surgeon in Harrisonburg, Va. (married to Gail), whose son died by suicide.   "For some seminaries, maybe it's been a morning or a week course." 

Christine Smith, a teacher of preaching at United Theological Seminary, Twin Cities, Minn., frequently has students to preach a trial sermon on suicide.

How can faith communities be helpful to those grieving suicide? 

"What was helpful were hugs, telephone calls, lunches, dinners, sending inspirational books, cards, just being there for me, sometimes silence," recalled Doris Smith.  "We do not need to hear, 'He's in a better place.' I believe it, but I don't want to hear that right now.  I need comfort.  Go to counseling, read these inspirational books, pray, go to support groups, let your faith intervene for you."

Merle Brubaker, Dillsburg, Pa., found that a videotape of his son's memorial service was "very, very valuable. We can watch it, and we [have to] cry, but it is very helpful to hear again the things that were said about Darrel, from people who knew him well and worked with him."

Brubaker doesn't hesitate to talk about his son. After his son's death, one woman told him that talking is great therapy. "People won't always like it but do it anyway," she advised.

Sheri Smucker, Harrisonburg, Va., said after her husband's suicide, "My pastor was very supportive, and she allowed me to come to their house every Wednesday for dinner, a standing invitation. I could come or not come, and I could help set the table, or I could just show up to eat and I could leave, or I could stay and talk if I needed to talk.  I could do whatever I needed to do, but I knew that I had a place there at her home."

A Bible study group became an informal support group for Fred. "It was very helpful for me and of some comfort to be in a group of men who could provide some empathy and understanding. As I learn more about men and women in grief, it's very hard for men to be open. It's not their nature. And so this group is a bit of its own support group." 

Families encourage ministers to deal with suicide in the memorial/funeral service. Dave Brubaker of Casa Grande, Ariz., talked with a friend who had also lost a brother to suicide. "He said at his brother's funeral nobody said a word about the cause of death. It was as if it had never happened. This man cried deeply at Darrel's funeral because of the openness around the fact that this was a suicide." Memorial services can celebrate both the good times and traits of the person, and also the sad and difficult things.

Most survivors talk about amazing demonstrations of love and support, and graciously point out that where hurtful things are said or people retreat behind walls of silence, it is because people don't know what to say or do in the situation.

Dave said he appreciated simple responses that allowed him the chance to expand the conversation or let it go, such as, "I heard about the loss of your brother, and I'm so sorry." Where there was a trust relationship, Dave said he could go deeper, and where he was more just an acquaintance with a person, he just appreciated the sentiment expressed.

Fred was surprised by his own reaction to simple questions like "How are you doing?" "It's one of those little simple re-entry things into life and a well-intentioned question, but for me and many people it's a very excruciating question," he explained. "After I had gotten through the funeral and back to work, two or three people came over to the house to pick up dishes or whatnot, and the first person asked me how I was. I froze. The next thing I knew I was sobbing and for months it was a very difficult question to answer."

He began to wonder how long this would go on, and his wife noted that since most friends "haven't been down this road, they don't understand."

One reason people don't like to talk about suicide and the afterlife is they fear their unanswered questions. Steffy said in the situation of the suicide of the congregation's treasurer, people didn't how to process it. "I think people didn't have any clear understanding of their own feelings about suicide, and there were a lot of questions in people's minds. Here was this person that they respected and saw as an upstanding pillar of the church and now what does it mean? What about his eternal destiny? What about his relationship with God? Was his life some kind of a sham in front of us?"

Steffy said it is important not only to listen to people's questions, but to encourage that questioning and further dialogue. "A large part of the grieving process was learning to deal with questions that we knew couldn't be answered," said Steffy. "Our experience confirmed to me that giving people permission to talk about painful things is one of the most important roles for pastoral leadership."

Sherry Molock, associate professor of psychology at George Washington University, tells churches they need to be a resource for information. Molock says while it is important to do workshops, it's even more important to talk about suicide, mental illness and depression from the pulpit.  "The average person is not going to come to a workshop unless they've been directly affected by depression or suicide.  But the entire congregation needs to know what it means to be depressed. They need to know that being depressed is a mental illness; it is not a sign of lack of faith.  It is not demon possession, it is not a sign that you are cursed by God, and that even the Bible has lots of examples. Most of the major prophets were depressed." 

She points out that Moses has almost a suicide wish when he is overwhelmed trying to help all the people. "He says to God, 'Why don't you just kill me?  I can't handle this.' And then God sends him an angel through his father-in-law Jethro who says, "Son, you can't solve all the problems of all the people in our communities. Let's set up a counsel of elders." So how did God work? God could have just zapped the depression away, but God worked through people. That's another way that the church can help."
 
Gail Fox suggests each church might benefit from bereavement training and a long-term committee to address grief. "What do you do past providing food after the service? Do you visit? What do you say? How long?" she asks. "There could be greater knowledge particularly when it comes to the loss of a child. There is no one journey. The five stages of grieving don't work with the loss of a child. It's a totally different journey because it's never going to end, never. The pain becomes less but it's always with you."

Fierce Goodbye: Living in the Shadow of Suicide will air Sunday, Aug. 22, 12 noon ET/PT, 11 a.m. CT on Hallmark Channel. The program will be available on VHS with extra material on DVD after Aug. 22. A web site offering additional information and resources for survivors is available at www.fiercegoodbye.com.

The documentary is produced in cooperation with Faith & Values Media, the nation's largest coalition of Jewish and Christian faith groups dedicated to media production, distribution and promotion. The programming services of Faith & Values Media are available on the Hallmark Channel and on www.faithandvalues.com.  Faith & Values Media is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc., established in 1987.