Jay

Grief in the Makemie Woods Community

A memorial service for campers and former staff to remember Jay is tentatively scheduled for 3 PM, April 9, and will take place at the canoe landing of Makemie Woods. 


Jay Shatzer died on December 26, 2005.  "Bigfoot's" ministry at Makemie Woods spanned nine years and seven summers, beginning in 1997.  A letter has been sent to camper families, and the resources below are intended to help families discuss this tragedy.  Another memorial service will be held at the camp this Spring.

Remembering Jay -- a Xanga site with the sermon from the memorial service, and a guestbook for friends to leave notes for the family.

Helpful Links:

The following resources were sent to us by Camp Hanover.  They were distributed to a congregation after their pastor took his own life.  First, there are three quotes from the sermon at the pastor's memorial service that I (Mike) found particularly helpful:

"I remember a father sharing  the description of his own feelings at the suicidal death of his son:
'I do not believe that people who kill themsleves are (at that precise moment) capable of understanding and appreciating the pain they are inflicting on those they leave behind.  I think their despair is too great for them to see that.   I think they believe they are solving one problem, with scant regognition of the other problems they are setting into motion.  Their choice is just that...their choice.  Private.  Personal.  And largely incapable of taking into account the larger impact it will have.'

Also:
"Second piece of advice: don't blame yourself.  Easy to say...harder to do.  Do keep asking yourself, what could we have done? What should we have done? What didn't we do?  To which one answer is: 'You did plenty.'  And then some.  Everybody says so.'  And in point of fact [he] would have said so too."

Finally:
"And on Thursday evening he became part of a small collection of folks--1 out of 12 of the clinically depressedtake their life according to the experts.  But in an act of desperation, his only way of seeing heimslef liberated from the enemy, was to take matters into his own hands.  And he slipped beneath the awareness of his true-self, of his God-self, of his Christ-self, of his baptised-self..and took matters into his own hands...or maybe he didn't do it at all.  That was not [him] at that moment.  It was the insidious disease."


    SUICIDE

    We pray for your mercy for those who have killed themselves.
    We know not their fears, and we thus fear they have died alone.
    They are now yours; in that is our comfort.
    Comfort all who love them and who will miss their presence.  Amen.


Why do people kill themselves?

          Suicide takes the lives of about 30,000 each year.  Overall, it is the 11th most common cause of death.  For some, suicide is a sudden act.  For others, it is a long-considered decision based on cumulative despair or dire circumstances.  For many, it is both: a brash moment of action taken during a span of settled and suicidal hopelessness.
          It can be virtually impossible to determine why people kill themselves.  Only one in four leaves a suicide note behind.  Many notes offer only vague reasons for the death, if any.  Those left behind often find ourselves searching for a precise event that caused the suicide.  We think the act will cease to be incomprehensible if we can identify something as the cause.  However, there is a distinction between causes and triggers.  A suicide might be triggered by a divorce or the loss of a job, but those may not be the actual causes.  After all, many people lose a spouse or a job without considering suicide.  Suicide is never the result of a single factor or event, but rather results from a complex interaction of many factors.  Some of these factors may include grief, chronic pain, and terminal illness.  Medical and biological factors also play a large role in most suicides.  Studies show that about 2/3 of those who committed suicide had suffered from clinical depression or other forms of chronic mental health problems.  Depression, in particular, causes feelings of control and self-esteem to deteriorate.  Suicidal individuals also experience chemical imbalances within their brains which diminish choice.  These biochemical imbalances also can lead to feelings of self-alienation and isolation as well as unrealistic feelings of shame and guilt.  Thinking can become so distorted, individuals frequently lose a realistic sense of the impact their suicide will have on those around them.  Options narrow to the point where the individual sees the only options as enduring or ending utter agony.  Suicide may occur when the psychological pain is so unbearable that death is seen as the only relief.


Still we ask why -

         When something goes wrong, we look for answers.  We search for reasons.  We ask ourselves, each other, and God, “Why?  Why did this happen?  Why did he do it?  Why didn’t I see it coming?”  Even an understanding of the effects of depression leaves us wanting.  We want to know if the suicide could have been prevented.  We want to know if we somehow contributed to it or if we could have somehow prevented it.  Guilt and blame haunt survivors and the surviving community.  Often an underlying, and more difficult question to articulate is “How could he do this to me?  To his family?  To us?  How could that person have been willing to cause so much pain and chaos in the lives of those around him?”

          Somehow we believe that if we can get an explanation for the suicide, we will find peace.  In our minds, we equate explanations and comfort.  But this is a false premise.  To have an explanation of the causes of suicide does not necessarily bring comfort or healing.  Our search for explanation is really a search for comfort.  In time, unrealistic desires for full explanation must be relinquished.  Listing reasons to explain a suicide will not bring peace.  When Job demanded answers from God, he did not get the explanation he wanted.  He was instead given God’s presence.  Somehow this was sufficient.  In the aftermath of suicide, we must turn to the Great Physician who knows how to bring healing and restoration to our broken hearts, broken lives, and broken communities.  Healing is not likely to come from torturous analysis of our loved one’s last days.  Instead, we must go to the care of the One who knows how to put us back together.


Common Reactions to Suicide

          Shock.  Shock is a natural reaction designed to protect us, to cushion the reality and depth of our pain.  Upon hearing the news of a suicide, we may experience a variety of initial reactions.  Some shut down emotionally.  Others feel physical upheaval, as if punched in the gut.  We might be overwhelmed by uncontrollable crying, or we may experience anger or rage.  Often, we may experience denial or seek alternative explanations for the death other than suicide.  Whatever the reaction, there is no right or wrong way to respond.  Consequently, we must make allowance for others’ feelings or expressions of grief, particularly in responding to suicide.
          Turmoil.  Turmoil is the experience of the mixture of grief and trauma.  People may have trouble concentrating or making plans. Days are filled with confusion and irritability.  Sometimes turmoil is experiences as a strange numbness of feeling.
          Rejection and abandonment.  Suicide can feel like a total dismissal, the cruelest way a person could tell us that they are leaving us behind.  We feel abandoned and unloved.  We may experience a sense of failure because our efforts to love and support the person appeared to have failed.  If we have experienced the suicide of someone earlier in our lives, memories and feelings of that loss often come back.
          Anger.  Suicide can leave us feeling furious and embarrassed at our fury.  “How could you leave me that way?  How could you ruin our lives like this?  How could you be so selfish?”
          Shame.  We may feel afraid of what others will think of our loved one or of us when they hear the cause of death was suicide.  We worry others will view the death as shameful.  We worry if we find ourselves thinking the death was shameful.  We fear others may feel we should have seen it coming - that if we really loved and were close to that person, we would have seen some signs and could have taken steps to prevent the death.
          Guilt.  We think of ways we might have contributed to the death, signs we may have missed, steps we didn’t take to perhaps prevent the suicide.  We may worry that we played some role, major or minor, that somehow contributed to the decision for suicide.  This is called “survivor’s guilt”.  While it is tremendously common, it is usually unwarranted and unrealistic.  Those who take their own lives are responsible for their final choice.  While we may always wonder whether we could have done anything to prevent the death, we must remind ourselves that it is usually beyond our power to prevent a suicide.

          Sometimes these guilt feelings are signs of unfinished business with the one who has died.  We may feel remorse over an unresolved argument or a past transgression.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can still ask the loved one for forgiveness.  We can turn to God in confession and repentance.  This can be a step toward forgiving ourselves and releasing ourselves from guilt, real or imagined.


Suicide and our Christian Faith

          Many Christians throughout church history have considered suicide an unforgivable sin because it allows no possibility of repentance.  However, 20th century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among others, argues that to expect complete repentance in the final moment of life is unrealistic.  He writes, “Many Christians have died sudden deaths without having repented of all their sins.”  Christians affirm that at conversion, God forgives all our sins - past, present, and future, once and for all.  Christian salvation is not dependent on whether a person was able to “wipe the slate clean” at the moment of death, but rather upon whether the person was walking in relationship with God in life.
          The Bible records seven acts of suicide.  All these accounts are straightforward narratives; none offer any particular comment on the act of suicide.  There is no connection anywhere in Scripture between suicide and a sin that cannot be forgiven.  In fact, the only “unforgivable sin” is blasphemy according to Matthew 12:31-32.  Many Christian traditions agree that a person will not be judged on the nature of his or her death, but rather on the nature of his or her life.  In other words, the single act of suicide does not negate a person’s entire moral identity.  If a person dies of cancer, God does not hold that cancer against him.  God considers the state of his soul, not merely his ravaged body.  God will consider the state of a suicide’s soul, not merely the mind which may have been misled and confused at the time of suicide.  God is just and perfect in wisdom.  We find comfort that in God’s justice our loved one’s actions will be seen in light of their circumstances, and we trust that God understands the pain of both the victim and survivors of suicide.

                    (Information excerpted from Grieving a Suicide by Albert Y. Hsu)

Affirmation from Romans 8:35, 37-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness or peril or sword?
No!  In all things we are more than conquerors through the One who loved us. 
We are sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanks be to God!  Amen.

What Can We Tell Our Children?
    (Excerpted from Helping Children Cope with the Loss of a Loved One
    by William Kroen)

General comments about talking to kids about death

Kids’ understanding of death and how they grieve
Ages 10-18 months: cannot understand death.  Will be profoundly affected by death of mother or primary care-giver, but usually not by other deaths.
Ages 18-20 months: may react to sadness and turmoil around them by being upset, acting up or regressing. Use simple phrases, repeated, to help them understand there has been a change; e.g., “Daddy gone”, “Mommy no more”.
Ages 2-5 years:
Ages 6-9 years:

Kids 10-13 years:

Adolescents:
Things Kids and Families Can Do in a Time of Grief:
Resource List for Parents:
Helping Children Cope with the Loss of a Loved One, by William Kroen
Helping Children Grieve, by Theresa Huntley
Grieving A Suicide, by Albert Y. Hsu
Why Suicide?, by Eric Marcus

Kids Books:
Sad Isn’t Bad, by Michaeline Mundy
The Fall of Freddy the Leaf, by Leo Buscaglia
When Dinosaurs Die, by Brown and Brown
When Someone Dies, by Sharon Greenlee




[ Makemie Woods Home Page | Contact Us ]

Last updated 3/22/06