This week, we welcome another guest post from our friend and fellow survivor, Natalie K., sharing thoughts about the loss of her parents and the legacy they established while they were still living.
“I can recall someone looking confused as I told them I was attending a survivors of suicide support group. They thought that the words “survivor” and “suicide” didn’t logically belong in the same sentence. But they do, as so many of us personally and painfully know. My name is Natalie and my brother Brendan and I are the survivors of a murder suicide. My father took my mother’s life while she slept with a gunshot wound to the head, and then turned the gun on himself and took his own life also with a gunshot wound to the head. On the evening of August 28, 2012, I called my parent’s home around dinner time and no one answered. August 29, 2012 started with repeated phone calls to my parent’s home, continued with phone calls between me and my brother who lived in Texas not too far from my parents, and ended with my brother calling me and telling me between sobs that Mom and Dad are dead. Shock was my initial 
reaction, and for the next 12 hours I could only think of getting to Houston as fast as I could to be with my brother, and seeing my parents. Our bodies have an amazing ability to “power through” and go forward with the necessary motions. Packing my suitcase – do I need to bring my birth certificate to prove I’m their daughter? Boarding the plane. Hiring a crime-scene clean-up agency to take care of the aftermath. Hiring a funeral home. Picking the clothes I would last see my parents wear before they were cremated. Although there is no typical suicide story, I can’t help but ponder the fact that my mother battled severe depression throughout her whole life, but she was not the one who died by suicide. Did my dad become depressed through the numerous ups and even more downs? Why couldn’t I have known what he was going through deep down inside? Did he do this to end her pain, which the four of us observed and tried every avenue to help my mother? On my angry and judgmental days, I am upset with my dad for making such a conscious choice, for which there were so many steps, and equally so many opportunities to stop himself and say “what am I doing?” I get angry that he made a choice that would hurt me and my brother more than we could imagine. However, I understand that he didn’t really “make the choice” but rather “arrived at the choice,” after living day-after-day through the alternative. In front of him were life scenarios, including ending his and my mother’s lives. I don’t think he consciously pursued this choice; it was the lesser of a list of painful and hopeless alternatives.
I strive to make my parent’s beautiful legacy live on. Brendan and I are Dilip and Teri’s son and daughter. Murder suicide was the way they died, but it does not even begin to do justice to the way they lived. I encourage all survivors to remember that your legacy is built while living and not to focus on the single act of suicide.”
– Natalie K., fellow survivor and participant in Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide group
Image courtesy of Legacy Keepers Blog.
I’m just re-reading this story; I love how you are letting your parents legacy live on WITHOUT having it being tied to their death. I have to always remind myself that my Dad is not defined by the way he died.