Suicide

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Dear Paul, Ben and Sarah, Melanie, and Roice,

cc: file, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"Last week I wrote about life: (`I know my life has been extended. I believe this has been because I can be of service to my God! I recognize His hand in my life. Accordingly I have dedicated my life to serving Him and His work. I made this commitment back in 1968, and inspite of all of my weaknesses, I continue to strive to provide this service.'). Based on events of this last week, it seems logical to talk about the other side of the coin this week.

Reynolds Cahoon (D&C 52:30, 61:35; 75:32; 94:14; opps, that was Reynolds' ancestor) reports to me on his Home Teaching. We decided a couple of interviews ago to have a dutch oven dinner for his families at my house. He invited a young man his son Ryan had taught the gospel to, before leaving on his mission, to join us. The young man arrived a few minutes before anyone else. He is 20. His wife delivered a son by cesearian section early in July and they named him a Junior. Last week his wife left and took his son with her and went to Tennessee. She had committed adultry 3 or 4 times, he had accepted her back, and now she was gone. As we talked, I asked questions based on Pairs experience, and a little book I read last week: `How to Survive the Loss of a Love' by Melba Colgrove, Harold H. Bloomfield, & Peter McWilliams. To provide a context I quote from the book, pages 19-20, 22, and 68-69:

`Surviving Thursday: drowning in love Friday: drowning in doubt Saturday: drowning Sunday: God, I can't drag myself to church this morning. Please make a house call. One: You Will Survive * You will get better. * No doubt about it. * The healing process has a beginning, a middle, and an end. * Keep in mind, at the beginning, that there is an end. It's not that far off. You will heal. * Nature is on your side, and nature is a powerful ally. * Tell yourself, often, "I am alive. I will survive." * You are alive. * You will survive. Two: If You Need It, Get Help At Once * If you think you need help, don't hesitate. Get it at once. * If you are feeling suicidal - or even think you might be feeling suicidal - call a Suicide Prevention Hotline at once. * To find the number, call Directory Assistance and ask for "The Suicide Prevention Hotline." Almost every town has one. (And notice how nice the directory assistance operator suddenly becomes.) * You should also seek help at once if you ... - feel you are "coming apart" - are no longer in control - are about to take an action you may later regret - have a history of emotional disturbance - turn to alcohol, drugs or other addictive substances in time of need - feel isolated with no one to turn to - repeatedly find yourself in loss situations * Help can be found in - of all places - the Yellow Pages. Explore the organizations under such listings as "Help Lines." * This is not the time to "be brave." In fact, it takes great courage to ask for help. Twenty-five: The Question of Suicide * You may be having suicidal thoughts. They may or may not be as eloquent as "to be or not to be," but they may arise. * If you fear these impulses are getting out of hand, seek professional help at once. Call directory assistance and ask for the number of your local Suicide Prevention Hotline. Then call it. The people (almost entirely volunteers) are there to help. They want to help. Give them the gift of allowing them to do so. * Don't turn the rage you feel against yourself. (Although feeling rage is perfectly all right - after all, an utterly outrageous thing has happened to you.) Find a safe way to release it. Beat a pillow, cry, scream, stomp up and down, yell. * Above all, suicide is silly. It's leaving the world ten minutes into the first inning just because your favorite hitter struck out. It's walking out of the opera during the overture just because the conductor dropped his baton. It's ... well, you get the picture. In this play called life, aren't you even a little curious about what might happen next? * The feeling will pass. you can count on that. You will get better. Much better. * We do promise you a rose garden. We just can't promise you it will be totally without thorns. THE QUESTION OF SUICIDE: Keep it a question. It's not really an answer.'

So after I listened to the dispair, I asked if he had considered suicide. He answered yes. I put my hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, and asked him to promise me he would not take this action. He promised.

I recall three times in my life when I felt complete dispair.

First: I took my 30-30 saddle gun out of the closet, loaded it, and with fanfare, asked Marti if this was a solution. I scared myself. Shortly after this I packed up all three of my guns, shipped them as baggage when I went to Utah to visit Mom and Dad, and gave them to Uncle Tony, who likes to collect guns. I don't remember when this happened.

Second: On the 22nd of May in 1994, in a talk titled `Why was the Aaronic Priesthood Restored?' I wrote and said:

`In a recent Priest Quorum lesson we reviewed Wilford Woodruff's first mission to Arkansas, where he travelled as a Priest without purse or script square through Jackson County, and reread his statement that "A priest holds the keys of the ministering of angels. Never in my life, as an apostle, as a seventy, or as an elder, have I ever had more of the protection of the Lord than while holding the office as a priest. The Lord revealed to me by visions, by revelations, and by the Holy Spirit, many things that lay before me." In my life, I have been blessed with great highs and periodic serious lows. A few years ago I found myself walking along the railroad track out by Brookshire about 3:00 in the morning with feelings of complete failure. I seriously considered stepping in front of an unexpected train that came along at full throttle, but made the conscious choice not to because of the impact it would have had on my family and on the Aaronic Priesthood boys I have been privledged to work with in this ward for the last 8 years. Sometimes, like when I think of Jay Deford playing "Come, Come Ye Saints" at Matt's farewell, I wonder who the ministering angels are, and which side of the vail they are on.'

Paul made a comment to me about how inappropriate my comment was. It always interested me that there was never a question asked, as to what was the origin of these feelings of total dispair. Despite having a lot of friends in the ward, I think I scared them with my openness. I guess it doesn't matter if anyone else knows what initiated the emotional meltdown, since it was my feelings, and I just needed to learn how to refocus my thoughts, put in the nuclear control rods, and avert meltdown.

Third: I recall when I was driving back from Austin each week, how I identified several places where I could drive the car and it would most likely not be discovered. It takes a geologist and a river to have these kind of thoughts. There were feelings of failure, and pain, and anger, and rage. Needless to say, I turned my thoughts a different direction, and do not think suicide will ever be a viable option for me. Hopefully it will also not be an option for any of you or any of yours.

Your Mom's Uncle, Aunt Martha's husband, committed suicide. He shot himself with a revolver. It was devastating on his children. I have always had the greatest respect for Aunt Martha. She has seemed like the true rock among the children of Thomas Barabas Sharp. However, I am sure that this experience has left a lasting impression on your Mom. I do know that before your Mom told me, yet again, she was going to divorce me, she went to Bishop Daniels and warned him I `might do something stupid.' I'm glad she was wrong. I'm sorry I created and fed on those fears. I didn't even realize this might have happened until earlier this year, when I called Aunt Martha to see if she had any advise for me, based on your Mom visiting her.

Today in Gospel Doctrine the lesson was about Jonah. When The Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry against that great city, he rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. When the sea's tempestuousness was about to sink the ship Jonah said:

`take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.' (Johah 1:12)

When the Lord was merciful to the people of Nineveh, after they repented, Johah said:

'take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 4:3)

After teaching Jonah he did not labor for a gourd of water, he did not make it grow, and it was of no benefit to him to get angry when it perished, the Lord taught:

'And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand (120,000) persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?' (Jonah 4:11)

Paul wrote a nice letter this week, in which he talked about the Lord's grace. He said:

`I went with President 3 1/2 hours south to meet with Governmental officials of a city called Barnaul (900,000 population). We have already opened the city to missionary work. I just translated, but it was neat. We sent 4 of our best missionaries down there yesterday. We had a meeting with them to pump them up. It was just like sending off the four sons of Mosiah. We gave them 15,000 publications, 3 boxes of supplies, and sent them off. They don't even have apartments. They will be in apartments soon though.'

As I think of the mundane of my life, it is nice to have good books, the scriptures, my guitar, friends, and family to remind me I am important and life is worth living. We have been working very hard to get Continuum up and running. Staff meetings, interpretations of 2-D and 3-D data sets for demonstrations, a nice lunch under Ken's new picture at Beef 'N Bird with Doug Harless, demonstrations to Creve Maples at Rick Zimmerman's company of what a real oil company does, planning meetings, and a visit from Carolina Cruez, the lady who built the first CAVE (tm) as part of her Ph.D. program, all seem to muddle together as I recall the last week. I went to see the movie `Smoke Signals' Friday night. It is really good. It is about what I have written about, and yet it is not. It ends reminding us, among other things, `we need to forgive or fathers for divorcing our mothers or not divorcing our mothers.' The movie got me thinking about some of the mistakes of my life, and some of the successes. It motivated me to take on a hard topic, to attempt to face it directly, and to encourage each of you to also face it directly, whether in your own lives, or in the lives of your friends. Last night Reynolds and I had about 16 folks over for dinner. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved the pool and the cobbler. The adults loved the dutch oven potatoes and the conversation. It made me feel really good to be alive, even though none of you were here to enjoy it with me. May you all live long and healthy lives, emotionally and spiritually as well as physically."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 1998 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.