A Sad Parallel: Reflecting on the Suicide of Mary Kennedy
Christina’shomeremedies.com
When I read of the suicide of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s wife Mary Richardson Kennedy, I thought of my best friend Delia, who took her life at the age of 37. Like Mary Kennedy, Delia was a privileged and beloved mother who lived in Westchester County, New York. Like Mary Kennedy she was in her prime, and she was clinically depressed. And like Mary Kennedy, she had talked of, and even attempted suicide before.
Delia was the girl with everything: a loving husband, two adorable and adoring young daughters, an 18th century farmhouse filled with antiques, set on lush grounds. She was smart, kind, beautiful, active in the community, revered in our village. Hundreds of people crammed the sanctuary and grounds at her funeral.
Nine years before her death, when I moved to my nearby house with my first husband and two young sons, Delia came over with a bouquet of garden flowers to welcome us. I was charmed by her grace and warmth, and we soon became best friends.
Our families celebrated New Years at each others’ homes, we took our children trick-or-treating along the back roads where the Headless Horseman himself had traveled in Washington Irving's story. We traded books, we started a monthly dinner where we prepared foods of the world. Delia and I supported each other, talked every day, shared dreams, confided about our fears.
Seven years before she succeeded, Delia attempted to take her life with an overdose of pills. Her husband called our house in a panic and we rushed over and threw her in the front seat of our van and speeded to the nearby hospital. She was in a deep coma, but came out of it. People were told she had an allergic reaction.
I didn’t see that attempt coming, and for the next years I could never really forget it or completely trust her mood. She was fragile but seemed happy enough. She completed her Master’s at Teachers College Columbia, and became a popular elementary school teacher.
About a year before she died, Delia became gaunt, her eyes haunted. She was seeing a psychiatrist, and on meds, but appeared lost and frightened. She told me she felt like she was in “a dark hole.” She said there was nothing I could do. She doubted everything she did.
I felt we were losing her, but I didn’t know what to do. And then in May, when the air was filled with the scent of lilacs -- the weekend before Mother’s Day-- she became overly happy, camping out with her daughters by her pond. Strange behavior for Delia.
And then the call from her housekeeper on a weekday morning. The police had already arrived. I was two blocks away, and ran over to see my best friend removed from her house in a body bag. The door to her car was still open from when she had rushed home from teaching.
She had overdosed, but Delia's husband, a lawyer who worked in the city, couldn’t bear to hear the details. He had to commute back to Westchester, knowing she was gone, but not knowing much more.
I was with him when he told his daughters, who were 10 and 12. They cried, and then went out to play. And then I called her friends, who didn’t believe me. “She had everything,” they said. “Why would she take her life?”
What did her husband do to her that they didn’t know? They were trying to find a reason. But depression can be a terminal disease. There is often no "reason," any more than getting a heart attack or cancer has a reason.
Delia did leave a note. I never found out what it said. I know that she loved her family more than anyone I knew, and would not have left them if she could have endured her suffering.
Years later William Styron, the author of Sophie’s Choice who suffered from depression, came out with a thin book titled Darkness Visible. I read it and learned as best possible, but too late, the terror of my friend.
Delia’s husband never remarried. Her daughters grew up to be lovely women, like their mother. Her photo is the only one on my living room table who is not a relative. She remains forever 37.
Like Mary Richardson Kennedy, she was a beloved person who died too young from a dread disease. It can happen to anyone. Even those who "have everything."
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David Kinne
Sean Murphy
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Brian Carter
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Comments
R♥
A few years ago, I attempted to explain depression in this post: http://open.salon.com/blog/mary_ann_farley/2009/04/21/understanding_suicide
I'd learned so much about it while doing some medical editing, soon after I'd been released from a psychiatric hospital. You're right...it's a medical disease like any other. In the same way no one can see a heart attack coming, we can't always see an impending suicide. I'm so glad I survived my own depression.
That last happy weekend sounds as though Delia had made her decision, made her peace with that decision and could live those few remaining days happy that her dilemma had been resolved. I guess in our worst states we can all imagine how close we might come.
Like you, it makes me so sad that some people are unable to savor their lives. As a cancer survivor, life feels like an especially extraordinary miracle.
It has to be hard for the children to see the pictures and death of their mother splashed all over the media during an ongoing divorce.
Finding out someone you love has died from suicide is never easy.
Depression is a horrible disease to die from....
Thanks for your putting this so beautifully.
r.
Lezlie
"Having everything" is an illusion.
Painful. That's essential when ready.
Painful Memories get shed-off aside.
Pause . . .
Two GI's who Loaded me on a chopper-
chopper - medical evacuation - DUMP-
evacuation? I used to say`dumped me-
as in`
dusted off`
medical dump`
hay doc! Dump!
`
That meant`Shot!
Two who "dumped"
me-off on a chopper-
Pause . . . shot `Self.
`
You helped me 'Touch."
I mean to revisit`Pains.
But, we all gotta do that.
r./
Captivating, sad and bracing, this piece.
I hope you continue to grow the gallery on your wall that only holds relatives and one friend...only for people like me, whose family is their friends.
Ben Sen, there was no discernible "reason" for her suicide. That is the point. She had a disease.
And I didn't think I was being sentimental. Sad, yes. What we can learn from Styron is if you feel suicidal or someone seems suicidal, check into a hospital so you don't harm yourself and you can get measured treatment. It will usually pass. And music helped him.
While it does seem to have a selfish aspect - turn the thought around - is it selfish to have to escape the pain? Or selfish to want the pain to continue just so you can keep them with you? The far end of the spectrum of depression, the too much pain part, is akin to the terminal physical illness that descends into pain and misery - there's no cure for either of them, only medications that sustain a modicum of (dull) comfort.
I've never reached the too much pain end, even with days where I can't see a viable future, and can't see myself taking the last resort.. but I can empathize to a degree with those who couldn't see any other way :(.
Rated for sometimes life hurts, sometimes too much.
You never hear of people doing that with other diseases. "oh he had leukemia. Fought it for 20 years- god what a selfish man for being consumed by his disease."
have more I could say but hard to find the words this morning except that I am glad you were there for your friend...
I shot video footage of Mary Kennedy speaking in June, 2009 at a local fundraiser (Birds of Prey Day) and hope to post it in the coming weeks if I can track down my source tape. To see and hear such an eloquent speaker in person and three years later to hear the terrible news of her fate has been a shock for me.
Here's a short HD clip of RFK, Jr. speaking at the same event:
http://open.salon.com/blog/designanator/2010/04/25/gns_my_video_clip_of_robert_f_kennedy_jrs_speech
Instead of a person who 'had it all' Mary Kennedy sounds like a woman who lost it all.
Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, &c.
Whether she "had it all" is beside the point. There's an old poem that Simon and Garfunkel made a song out of about that, called Richard Cory.
Yes, suicide is irresponsible, but the depression leading to it isn't rational. It's partially a question of pain but partially a question of believing different things about yourself, things that typically aren't rational, like "the world will be better off without me." It's not like someone who's miserable and thinking stuff like that is going to sit down and figure out what the consequences of suicide would be to those who are close. There's also the question of Could you maybe consider something reversible, like running away for a while?
I have gotten better, a blood test proved I was sick. My body and mind were dying. Thanks to finding the right doctor who didn't just want to load me up with anti-depressants, but look deep into the issue, I have been able to heal.
This is a reminder that this truly is a disease that needs more attention and no one should have to suffer alone, fearful of being judged for being sick. Thank you.
Its insidious nature can infect a person's psyche till their physical self begins to no longer matter enough to them.
A touching portrayal.
R
Growing up in that same family was toture. My sister much like my mother.
I had a serious bout that came on suddenly and turned me from a successful middle aged happily married mother of 3 to an attempted suicide all in the course of a couple of hours. After the first attempt that put me in a coma for 3 days, I was angry that I lived and tried several more times. Thankfully unsuccessful.
I had written Oprah, who knows why. I guess I thought she would care. Three weeks after the second attempt, the police showed up at the house I was staying and asked for me saying Oprah's show had called. They show up THREE WEEKS LATER? I told them I was fine and went into the house and took a huge handful of potassium. (I read somewhere they use that to kill people on death row.)
That would be almopst laughable...if it wasn't such a personal tragedy.
That was 18 months ago.
Now I write here ... a different kind of suicide.
How sad about your friend. I think we all have someone in our families who has committed suicide. In my case, a male family friend committed suicide due to financial troubles. In addition, my uncle (a priest) also committed suicide many years ago.
Despite the fact that there are now treatments, there is still such a stigma associated with these illnesses that people often hide them instead of trying to seek treatment. For various reasons, I can’t take antidepressants, so I exercise A LOT and take a variety of nutritional supplements to help me.
I’m going to have to check into “Darkness Visible.” I’ve read Kay Redfield Jamieson’s book “An Unquiet Mind.” It’s a fascinating account of a woman who discovered she had Bipolar Disorder (aka manic depression) WHILE IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. She got good treatment and went on to work at Johns Hopkins University. She later wrote what is now regarded as the definitive medical text on Bipolar Disorder. It was quite revolutionary because never before had a medical text on BD been written from the unique POV of someone who actually suffered from the disease.