
S Is for Suicide by Francesca Moroney
S Is for Suicide by Francesca Moroney
A is for Alleluia
She is alive!
In Catholic masses, we pray, Christ has died, Alleluia, Christ is risen.
Today I pray not for Jesus’s eternal soul but for my daughter’s physical body, the two of us sprawled across the white fuzzy rug of her bedroom, each of us with a coloring book and markers scattered between us.
Alleluia, I whisper to the purple one.
I cannot see my daughter’s face, only the top of her head, covered in curly, matted hair. She does not hear me. She is whispering her own prayers.
B is for Blessings
Count your blessings, my grandmother told my eight-year-old self, pulling on her hat and gloves before beginning her daily walk to mass.
My daughter agrees to walk with me to the trail behind our house. We take 1,862 steps. Each one, a blessing.
C is for Communion
Catholics are told not to bite the host but to let it dissolve slowly on the tongue. As a child, I feared my jaw would revolt and chomp down on my Savior against my will. Even today, on the rare occasions I receive communion, I feel a twinge of anxiety in my spine. Don’t do it, I tell my inner demon.
From the hospital, my daughter gives me her grocery requests: tortilla chips and salsa from her favorite restaurant, fresh grapefruit, a jumbo-sized tub of Nutella. She is all smiles on her first afternoon home, one sister on either side of her, dipping their chips into a shared bowl.
D is for Dei Gratia
Latin for By the grace of God, this phrase is used by Catholics as a prayer of thanksgiving, acknowledging God’s decision over their fates.
In the ER exam room, my daughter lies on a gurney while her assigned watcher stands guard. My nose is chapped from wiping it with brown paper towels from the metal dispenser bolted to the wall. My hands smell like antiseptic. Four doctors in green scrubs enter the room to tell me the acetaminophen in her bloodstream has not caused any permanent liver damage. Dei Gratia.
E is for Eagle
I cry every time I hear On Eagle’s Wings, a hymn often played at funerals, one that promises gifts in the afterlife: to shine like the sun, to find shelter with the Lord, and to be free from fear and harm.
Mere hours before my fifteen-year-old daughter would swallow a cocktail of pills in an attempt to harm herself, she and I stood side by side in a wooden pew and sang the hymn I know by heart.
The priest wafted incense over my aunt’s casket, but I prayed only briefly for her eternal soul.
Mostly I prayed for my daughter, whose body trembled when I put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder, so that when I sang my favorite line, about the reward that might make all the pain of being human worthwhile, may God “hold you in the palm of His hand,” I sang it directly into her ear.
F is for St. Francis of Assisi
I was named for my father, who was named for someone else’s father, who was named for Francis of Assisi, patron saint of lost animals, small children, the earth, and broken dreams.
G is for aGnostic
My daughter has been home from the hospital for almost a week when she sees a rosary on the counter. She does not know what it is.
Like most lapsed Catholics I know, all that survived after I excised my faith are secular Christmas traditions: a tree, presents, a big meal. Once I stopped believing in Jesus, or, at least, once I stopped believing in the Church that first taught me about Him, I found it too difficult to talk to my children about my complicated relationship with its teachings.
So I am surprised when my daughter declares, That’s Jesus, proudly, pointing to the crucifix at one end, as though anticipating my surprise. I explain the purpose of a rosary is to say a prayer for each bead, but before I can clarify the specific recitations, she picks it up and closes her eyes. My other daughter and I are quiet, staring at her.
The dogs nuzzle each other. The refrigerator hums. Her sister and I wait for a very long time.
She opens her green eyes, bloodshot and swollen from weeks of tears. What next?
You pick another bead, I improvise, and you say another prayer.
When she has finished her second prayer, she puts the rosary down. Do you believe in God? she asks me.
I don’t know, love. Do you?
She doesn’t know. Neither does her sister. We are a family of not knowers.
It has now been almost six weeks since my daughter’s suicide attempt, and I am no closer to knowing if I should blame God for allowing my child to harm herself as she did, swallowing Tylenol in the privacy of her own bathroom while I flossed my teeth in mine, or merely biology. I will never know with certainty what caused her to regret her decision, six hours later, waking me in the middle of the night to confess her sins, nor will I ever have be fully convinced it was merely dumb luck that got us to the hospital quickly enough for the antidote to work.
As for me, I struggle to name what keeps me upright when I would otherwise fall—in the street, the hospital elevator, the puddle of rainwater at the steps to my backdoor.
Catholicism rests almost completely on our willingness to accept as true that for which we have no proof, and yet I still want proof.
H is for Heaven
For Catholics, the promise of Heaven is our sole motivator. There is no reward to be found during this lifetime: our burden is to suffer proudly and silently. All my life I heard, “Be a good girl so you can get into Heaven.” I was to be polite, keep my virginity, get good grades, stay thin, and never miss Sunday mass.
On the night my daughter was admitted to the inpatient behavioral unit of our local children’s hospital, two security guards escorted us from the ground-floor emergency room to the tenth-floor locked unit. I stared at their holsters, heavy with guns, and jumped at the sound the loaded key rings made when they were inserted into the elevator’s panels. I held my daughter’s street clothes in a plastic bag. She wore a light-blue-and-white checked hospital gown and brown, no-skid socks and wrapped her arms around herself. I’m scared, she whispered. I took a deep breath and tried to stop crying.
We got off the elevator.
Doorbells rang and walkie-talkies crackled. Two big, polished wooden doors swung open to reveal a kindly, grandmotherly nurse. In the dim blue light of computer screens, ten rooms and ten beds stretched along an almost-silent hallway. Walking to the empty room at the end of the hall, I counted nine girls huddled beneath nine thin white blankets. I prayed that none of them would ever again hear the words “good” and “girl” spoken in the same sentence.
I is for Immaculate Conception
Immaculate: from the Latin im-, not + maculare, to stain
The Immaculate Conception refers not to Mary’s asexual insemination, otherwise known as Jesus’s virginal conception, but to Mary’s own conception. Notwithstanding her parents’ carnal act, and for reasons unknown to humankind, God chose to make Mary—and Mary alone—free of original sin, a curse that all other humans must bear.
In this way, she is the antithesis of Eve, whose sins, as St. Ephrem wrote, were the cause of our death.
Young girls must choose to emulate Mary, or to be, like Eve, a stain.
J is for Justifying Grace
The grace by which a person is restored to God’s friendship.
After finishing our ER paperwork, we are asked if we would like a visit from the chaplain. My atheist husband scoffs, and my daughter stares blankly. I say, No, thank you, not wanting to acknowledge the rising fear in my chest that would otherwise cause me to accept this routine gesture.
But as the panic of the moment gives way to tedium, and I grow tired of pacing the five feet alongside her narrow gurney, I imagine myself sneaking away to find the chaplain: I would bow my head in the presence of someone holy and believe, if only for a breath, in the part of me that God could still love.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been years since my last confession.
K is for Kneeling
When the psychiatrist comes in to talk to my daughter, I seek out the chapel after all. It is empty, and beige. I kneel on the floor in the absence of kneelers, penitent that I am, and am unable to utter a single intelligible word. I kneel until the pain in my knees is bigger than the rest of my pain.
L is for Lamb
A symbol of Christ’s purity and innocence, the lamb is often depicted with a wound in its chest, gushing blood into a waiting chalice. When I was a child, my family celebrated Easter with a too-sweet lamb-shaped cake, jellybeans for eyes and neon-green grass frosting beneath his kneeling legs.
As part of my daughter’s post-hospitalization care, I schedule an appointment for her with an energy healer. Afterwards, my daughter tells me the therapist hovered her hands over my daughter’s heart. There’s such a wound here, the therapist said.
On the way home, we stop for ice cream. I am desperate for an easy fix, grasping for a way to delay the kind of healing that will never be found in a sugary dessert.
M is for Madonna
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.
I ask Mary to teach me how to mother a child whose body is broken but whose soul clings to the promise of some future understanding. I realize, belatedly, that perhaps my own mother has these answers, as well, if only I could surrender my pride long enough to ask her.
N is for Novena
A novena is nine days of prayer for a single intention.
On Wednesday when she was alone in her bedroom, googling how to use Tylenol to kill yourself, before I knew how drastically our lives would change, I prayed for my daughter.
On Thursday on the way to the hospital, urging her to swallow large quantities of water, I prayed for my daughter.
On Friday while she slept in a narrow bed, connected to machines meant to tell us how well she might heal herself, I slept on a vinyl recliner, praying for my daughter.
On Saturday, leaving the behavioral health unit without my daughter, I fought to keep from turning to stone, my body wanting to forever freeze against the doors as they locked behind me. As I allowed myself to be led by my eldest daughter, whose somewhat inconceivable strength I not infrequently rely on, I prayed for my daughters.
On days five through eight, during visiting hours—Uno marathons, Disney movies, and the cooking channel—I prayed for my daughter.
On day nine, as I read her discharge papers, as I saw in black and white the words “suicidal ideation” and “loss of will to live,” I prayed for myself.
I will have to start all over again.
O is for Omission
Catholicism teaches that we sin not only through our misdeeds but also through the failure to practice good deeds. When we miss a chance or choose not to perform these morally upstanding acts—for example, almsgiving, care of the elderly, or forgiveness—we are guilty of sins of omission.
After my daughter had been home for a few nights, I found her in her room.
I don’t trust myself to be alone, she cried.
I lay down on her bed and fit my body to hers in every way that I could: her head under my chin, my arms wrapped around her narrow shoulders, my feet covering hers. I was uncomfortable, but I vowed not to move until she asked me. From her speakers, Lorde was singing too loudly, but I did not ask her to turn it down. I wanted to suggest a movie, a walk, a dance party, any distraction, to do anything but be still and quiet with her pain, but I refrained. I will not omit this part of my daughter.
I have sinned through my own faults, through what I have done and what I have failed to do.
Dear God, forgive me for all the times I distanced myself from my daughter’s pain, because it made me uncomfortable, because I didn’t want to admit my impotency, because it reminded me of my own.
P is for Penance
What I most appreciated about going to confession when I was younger was the comfort I took in being told what to do: if I followed the priest’s penance, I would be returned to a lovable creature, full of God’s grace. But the priests I relied on in high school have all either died or been accused of sexual misconduct, or both. I have no one who can hear my sins, no one to offer me absolution.
My daughter, in the days after she comes home from the hospital, says nothing so much as I’m sorry, like a refrain, all through the rainy days and sleepless nights, trying to relieve herself of the guilt she feels for the fear and turmoil she has caused. No, I tell her. I am the one who is sorry, and back and forth we go, vying for the role of penitent, neither one strong enough to offer God’s grace, only to desperately seek it.
Q is for Quietude
The Modern Catholic Dictionary defines quietude as a supernatural state of prayer, partially passive, where the will is seized by God, with the other faculties active but calmed. The soul realizes that it is near to God and is completely at peace. Meanwhile, the intellect enjoys a gentle repose and experiences a keen satisfaction in God’s presence.
I am afraid to meditate since my daughter’s overdose. My fear and pain seem so much a part of who I am that I dread what might become of me if I release them. At night before bed, I no longer use guided meditations. The most I can manage is to listen to recordings of falling rain, or something called “healing piano.”
I am not at peace, nor in repose. I feel far from God’s presence.
R is for Rosary
As a child, seeing chains strung with amber beads in the hands of my grandmothers and aunts was as unremarkable as breathing, yet somehow I don’t know how to say the rosary. I only know it is a complicated sequence of prayers, including ones I know by heart—the Our Father, the Glory Be, the Hail Mary—as well as ones I don’t—the Apostles’ Creed, the Hail Holy Queen.
On her first day home from the hospital, my daughter and husband and I attend a family therapy session. My daughter picks up a crystal from the coffee table and rubs it between thumb and forefinger. The therapist invites my daughter to take it home with her, to have something to do with her hands.
That night, after my daughter has fallen asleep, I rummage in my top dresser drawer. Digging through old bank statements, college photographs, and jewelry I don’t wear, I find a rosary made to commemorate the life of Pope John Paul II, his round face stamped on the silver, penny-sized discs. I take the rosary out of its white leather case and carry it around with me. I rub my cold fingertips against the coins and beads.
S is for Suicide
In 1992, I was newly graduated from college and living at home while waiting for the rest of my life to start. Most mornings, I had breakfast with my father while we shared The Chicago Tribune.
One day, over oatmeal and strong black tea, we learned that Pope John Paul II had directed the Vatican to acknowledge grave psychological disturbances that might cause someone to kill herself. This was a softening of the Church’s official position that suicides are not worthy of a Catholic funeral mass—something I had not previously understood about our religion.
What? I demanded, seizing this new piece of information as yet more evidence to support the gradual erosion of my faith. I was especially worried because my father was a retired priest, and, in spite of what I knew of his flaws, I did not want to believe he would have supported such dogma.
Do you mean that up until now suicide victims weren’t allowed to have a funeral mass?
But he reassured me. Absolutely not. I can’t imagine a parish priest anywhere who would deny the family and the victim a mass. It is our job to comfort. Never to judge.
My father died in March of 2004. Six months later, my now fifteen-year-old daughter was born. I imagine him greeting her on her way into this world. I find comfort in knowing he would have wanted her to have a funeral mass.
I rejoice that she doesn’t yet need one.
T is for Temporal
Anything that lasts only for a time, whose existence or activity will cease.
U is for Upper Room
The night before he was crucified, Jesus and His disciples shared the Last Supper in a room known as The Upper Room.
As a child, my mother and father belonged to a group of retired priests and their wives known as Upper Room. My sister and I didn’t like when it was our parents’ turn to host the monthly dinner, as it meant extra work: helping our mother prepare the meal, fetching ice from the basement, and making sure the living room was properly dusted. We had to refill water glasses, clear the table, and retrieve coats from my parents’ bed at the close of the evening.
On the day I brought my daughter home from the hospital, we walked through our back door to find our kitchen brimming with balloons, Thinking of You cards, hot soups, pans of brownies, and small, potted succulents.
I envision my friends slipping into our kitchen, stockinged feet and winter jackets, balancing their gifts, and I am reminded of the Upper Room—the ones who showed up, not always knowing what to expect, each of them wanting to find God in themselves and in each other.
V is for Vision
Mortals have been experiencing supernatural visions throughout the Catholic Church’s existence, beginning at least with the New Testament. In fact, Vatican guidelines exist to [judge] alleged apparitions and revelations. Around the world, bishops’ desks and electronic inboxes are cluttered with reports of alleged visions such as this:
At approximately 9:25 PM on Wednesday, February 5, 2020, a mother reported having a vision of her 15-year-old daughter swallowing a handful of toxic pills.
The vision occurred while the mother was engaged in a conversation with her actual, physical daughter. The mother reported it was like watching two film reels playing at the same time. On one reel, the flesh-and-bone daughter was telling her mom she was fine, that she didn’t need anything (but thank you), that she wanted to be alone, while, on the other reel, the daughter’s ghostly doppelgänger was twisting open a white plastic bottle and shaking out a handful of little red pills. The mother reported being very distraught as she saw her daughter’s two faces superimposed upon each other—the physical one mottled and swollen with tears, the supernatural one pale and composed.
The mother reported not believing the vision, convincing herself that she was overreacting. The mother checked on the daughter once, twice, twelve times. I’m really okay, Mom, the daughter said, with a weak smile, as the mother closed the door for the last time that night.
The mother reports not sharing the vision in real time with her other daughters, who were already safely ensconced in their rooms for the night. Nor did she tell her husband, who was out of the home at the time.
W is for Water
In my childhood home, a religious painting hung in our dining room. Jesus was in the center of the canvas, walking on a royal blue body of water, his hand outstretched to disbelieving disciples huddled in a boat, their faces painted to convey terror while Jesus’s face was shadowless, clear, lit from within.
My psychiatrist tells me about a new wellness agora where my daughter and I can experience some healing modalities. My daughter agrees to take a field trip there a few days after coming home from the hospital, and we decide on the flotation tank for her first session.
Reluctantly, she hands her phone off to me before heading to the treatment space, and I worry that she is annoyed, that she wants her phone, her friends, that she hates the idea of being here and will blame me for ruining her day.
When she is finished, her soaking wet hair piled on top of her head, her face looks calmer, more open, almost lit from within. She smiles. She does not fidget with her rings as she normally does. She makes eye contact. She does not immediately ask for her phone.
Back in the car, she asks me, Mama, can we come back next week?
X is for Ex Voto
From the Latin, meaning something offered by promise or vow in thanksgiving for a favor received.
Catholics love candles. Small, ecru-colored votives, resting inside red glass holders, wait inside the doorways to almost every Catholic church I have ever entered.
In my bedroom, on one of the nights my daughter lies across the river from me in a hospital bed, I construct a small altar. I find a few family photos, a small wooden cross that was a gift from my father, and a cheap trinket bracelet with the word “breathe” on a silver plate. I light a fat, white candle that smells like pine and frankincense.
I promise, is the closest I can get to a prayer.
Y is for Yahweh
As a child I loved the hymn that was often played during communion: Yahweh, I Know You Are Near.
Like most of the hymns of my childhood for which I am nostalgic, this one is easy to understand and remember. Beyond that, though, I have always found the lyrics powerful:
Yahweh I know You are near
Standing always by my side
What appealed to me about this as a child was that it took the pressure off me. It didn’t ask me to do or be better. It didn’t imply that I was doing something wrong or missing some important puzzle piece. It just told me: God is nearby.
As a young, idealistic, and self-proclaimed feminist, stepping away from the Catholic Church felt like a bold act of rebellion and independence, a way to ignore the harm I experienced in the name of Catholicism. But what seemed like a dissolution of little consequence turned out to be a spiritual and moral devastation, one that left a wound as voracious as any physical or emotional trauma ever did. What I now grapple with is whether or not I can forgive those who have trespassed against me while cultivating the spirituality I need to be a morally sound and responsive daughter, mother, and, perhaps, Catholic. Perhaps I might again feel that God or Goddess or god is nearby. Maybe this is the least I can do for my daughter.
Z is for Zeal
Etym. Latin zelus, eagerness; from Greek zēlo.
Love in action.
Francesca Moroney is a mother, writer, teacher, and reader, living and working with her five teenagers and three large dogs in southwestern Illinois. After teaching composition to community college and GED students for most of her career, she now teaches memoir writing at The Writers Studio.
Thank you for your vulnerability and honesty.
Thank you, John. You showed me a way through so much of this. xoxox
Francesca – this resonnates with me profoundly. I was an angsty teen who had had a big dose of preVatican 2 Catholosism – my family has lost a daughter (age 31) by suicide. She would have been 36 tomorrow. Thank you for writing this.
Oh, Stephanie. Huge, huge hugs. xoxox
Powerful and beautiful simultaneously. I felt every emotion. I was raised Catholic as well and recognized the nuanced feeling at every mention of a ritual, artifact, memory.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m saving it to reread, to ponder, to cherish.
Hi, Pat – I’m so happy it resonated for you. Thank you for sharing your response here.
Francesca, this is Beautiful and Brave and so powerful.
Hi, Karen! Thank you! I’m so grateful. xox
You lost me at “On Eagles Wings.” So much of this spoke directly to my heart and from a voice I know lives in me but I am incapable of listening to. Francesca, you are brave and wise. Thank you.
Thank you, Jessie! It will be Christmas before you get that song out of your head. xoxo
Francesca, this is the most moving, strong and brave thing that I have read in a long time. Thank you, our thoughts are always with you.
Thank you, Eileen – for reading and for your comments. xoxox
Thank you, Francesca. Your writing is moving & thought provoking. I returned to the Catholic faith after many years of rebellion & self indulgence. I came back home! May God bless you & your family. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Lisa – I’m grateful for your words. Thank you for sharing.
A friend shared this with me, as I’m trying to help my 14 year old daughter through deep depression and anxiety. Even with all the therapy, a proactive psychiatrist, and support from her teachers, her struggle continues. My vigilance never lets up. Your words deeply resonate with me in both beautiful and heartbreaking ways. As practicing Catholics (progressive, anti-dogma Catholics), we’ve been separated from our church community because of Covid, and we’ve felt too overwhelmed to practice our faith on our own. Thank you for sharing and reminding me that my lifelong Catholic rituals can provide comfort even when my faith wavers.
Hi, Kim – the sad truth of our country is that even the best mental health support is not always enough. Thank you for your commitment to yourself and your daughter. I’m holding you both in my thoughts.