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Grieving process: Some say Will County should again have group for loved ones

Maureen still struggles with her son's suicide.

  She has even followed Sean's footsteps on the last day of his life at Romeoville High School to figure out what happened before he left school early and went home to kill himself.

  Maureen, who didn't want her last name used, lost her son to suicide on Dec. 5, 2000. He was 17 years old.

  Maureen often blames herself for not taking her son's moodiness seriously. But when she attended the Survivors of Suicide (SOS) support group in Aurora, she found some peace.

  "It's great because you can see you are not alone. You are not the only one out there," she said. "Everyone else is saying the same thing. You can kind of forgive yourself a little more. I'm not just a terrible parent. There was probably some severe depression there."

  Since there is no SOS group in Will County, Maureen has to go to Aurora. She strongly believes there is a need here.

  "I'm still living with that guilt every day," Maureen said. "I'm trying to accept or understand the fact that I couldn't make his world a good enough place. The only way he saw out of his pain was to do that. Every time I go to his grave, I say, 'I'm so sorry that I didn't see your pain.'"

Group in county

  Will County has a lot of support groups to help loved ones who have lost someone, but it's not the same when you have lost someone by suicide. The grieving process is most difficult because there are so many unanswered questions, said Sister Mary Frances Seeley, founder of the Crisis Line of Will county and president and chief executive officer of Crisis Line International.

  "Survivors are going through the most difficult times in their lives. It's helpful to be with other people who know what they are going through. It's important to know you are not alone. They can give insights and depth of understanding that others cannot," Seeley said. "Theirs is a natural grief that is compounded because the death was purposely decided by the other person. It makes it incomprehensible to understand.

  "When someone dies from an illness or a disease, people don't blame themselves because it is out of their control. You can accept the death," Seeley said. "When someone dies from suicide, it's why? ... Instead of getting angry at God, you get angry at the person. 'It was such a stupid thing to do. ... It's a reflection of me. I didn't see the signs. Did you warn me? I wasn't aware.' If someone dies by suicide, it's a sorrow that can never be answered."

Answering questions

  But there are a lot of questions that survivors would like answered, so the Catholic Charities, Diocese of Joliet, held three workshops on the healing in the aftermath of suicide. The need for a support group in the Joliet-area was evident when more than 100 people attended, said Kathleen McGowan, executive director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Joliet.

  "There is a crying need for people to do something with the grief from suicide," said the Rev. Charles Rubey, who led the workshops. He is the founder of the Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) program of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

  He told an audience of about 40 people last month that he received a letter from an elderly man who had been struggling for years to get one question answered: Is my son in hell?

  "How can I enjoy heaven when I know my son is in hell?" he asked Rubey.

  "I talked to him this afternoon. He was 81 years old, and he is obviously hurting," Rubey said.

  "There is no doubt in my mind that a person who completes suicide is with the Lord," Rubey said. "No one takes their life out of malice. They take their life out of desperation. I can't imagine God judging so harshly when someone is in such desperation. ... They are at peace."

  Rubey said it is good to admit a suicide is a suicide rather than an accident. He has been to funerals where family members denied it.

  "It's tough to explain suicide. It can be an indictment on a family and a person," Rubey said. "Suicide is a different form of death. We grieve forever."

  However, the grief won't be intense forever, he said. It will be part of a person forever. The pain lessens and becomes manageable. Joy will come back.

  "We've had people come in years after the suicide and realize something is wrong with (their) life," Rubey said.

  The problem is they never grieved for the person, he said.

  "People want to get back to where they were before, and it can't happen," Rubey said. "Nothing is ever the same after suicide. People are afraid of the grieving process. You can't microwave it — you can't go through it quickly. ... You have to feel the feelings and allow them to almost flush through your system."

Different stages

  Maureen, who has heard Rubey talk, has found her SOS group very helpful.

  "One of the good things about SOS is that you get people at different stages of their grief so we can all help each other," she said.

  For the newly bereaved coming in for the first time, they can see the veterans and see that they can survive. But it also works the other way around.

  "You can see brand-new bereaved, and you look at them and say, 'Hey, I have come a long way. I remember feeling that raw,'" Maureen said.

  When Stephanie Weber's mom died by suicide in 1979, there were no support groups for survivors of suicide, so she helped start one in 1982.

  The group still exists 20 years later and has about 48 members who come from all over the region, including Channahon, Bolingbrook and Morris.

  "It really helps people who come. I have gone on and got my master's degree in counseling. I'm there as a counselor and survivor," Weber said.

  Some survivors stay as long as 10 years, but the average length is about two years. Survivors may come back on the anniversary of the death, Weber said. The group also holds candlelight service at Christmas.

  Charlene Lockowitz, executive director of the Crisis Line of Will County, agrees there is a need for an SOS support group again. The previous one ended about two years ago.

  "It would be really important for Joliet to have a survivors' group again," Lockowitz said. "They really need to talk and need to be with someone who can relate to them."