My Brother’s Keeper

I recently started blogging for the Huffington Post. My first piece published there is an essay I wrote about my brother. The essay is below, followed by a link to it on HuffPo. My brother, Jim, died by suicide on a bright day in early September, ending

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Finding God in the Depths

Earlier this year I submitted an essay I had written about my brother’s suicide to Today’s Christian Woman. The essay was originally published on May 14, 2014–the day I turned 40–in their issue on depression. It was the first time I’ve been published in a Christian outlet.

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Identity Theft

Life after a suicide is confusing. The truth gets distorted, partly by the imprecise power of our memories. It can also be twisted by people looking to make themselves feel better. Suicide is a big, messy subject. It doesn’t fit well into our comfortably westernized lives. We

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Sorrow, Strangely Sweet

Life’s most tragic stories aren’t without beauty. That’s true of postpartum depression, suicide, and all forms of heartache and loss. Redemption lurks in the mire. I started this blog because of my battle with postpartum depression, when I was 34. At 15 I lost my mom to

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Why Suicide Isn’t a Selfish Act

In the three months since my brother took his life, I’ve heard a phrase repeated: “Suicide is cowardly. It’s a selfish act.” The words have come from my closest loved ones, others at church, and those who didn’t even know Jim. They argued that only a selfish

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Gifts My Brother Gave Me

When I graduated from college, my brother flew in early to help me move. From early evening to very early morning, we trekked between Evanston, Ill. and Chicago, zipping up and down Lake Shore Drive, his rental car loaded with my furniture, clothes and books. Jim rented

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When a Mom Dies Young

Amanda* is dying from breast cancer. In her early 40s with several young children, she recently told her husband that after she’s gone, she’d like him to remarry. Cancer drugs have sustained her life but stolen her hair. She takes them now to prevent her softening bones

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Rarefied Air

My family and I are vacationing in Colorado, and today we climbed Pikes Peak. Our Jeep did the actual climbing. But we successfully steered the vehicle skyward, to the mountain’s 14,115-foot summit. The 19-mile drive demands a stealthy crawl in low gear, up an increasingly steep two-lane

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