About

This blog is intended for those who are grieving the suicide death of someone they love. My teenage daughter, Mary, died by intentional overdose in 1995. My reflections on her death constitute part of every blog post. But I also dialogue with others–clinical researchers, poets, journalists, and writers–who have something valuable to say about suicide and those who are left behind.

After suicide, silence tends to pervade–the silence of stigma and shame, of saying goodbye after the door has been shut, of questions that haunt. My words here are an attempt to break the silence and to invite you to respond from your own experience.

I am 68 years old, married forty-two years, a mother of two grown children. On the day Mary overdosed, my husband and I were away for a day of prayer at a monastery in Washington, D.C. The link between Mary’s lonely desperation and our day of community and prayer has always resonated powerfully, and I have been pondering it for 19 years.

In 2001, I began writing a memoir titled My Daughter, Her Suicide, and God: A Memoir of Hope that was published in December 2014 and is available at Amazon. It’s my story of grief, to be sure, but also one of searching for and finding Mary and God. It ultimately delivers hope for my daughter and for all who die by suicide.

Olympia84@aol.com

IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS, CALL 1-800-273-TALK (8255) National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

12 Comments »

12 Responses

on January 12, 2013 at 9:38 pm | Reply Franklin Cook

I just encountered your blog and wanted to offer you my condolences for the loss of your daughter and my support for your efforts to write about your life and your experience with suicide and its aftermath. I have been an off-and-on blogger for awhile, and am just now trying to restart my efforts at http://bit.ly/suicidegriefblog (called “Grief after Suicide,” my blog is intended for caregivers who work with people bereaved by suicide, but I think bereaved people themselves will also find useful items there). I wish you all the best in your healing and encourage you to continue to tell your story.
on January 12, 2013 at 10:16 pm | Reply Marjorie Antus

Franklin, thank you for your kind encouragement. I will certainly read your blog, and I wish you and yours the best. Possibly we can encourage each other and our readers to read both our blogs.
on February 17, 2013 at 8:01 pm | Reply Franklin Cook

Marjorie:

I featured “Mary’s Shortcut” in a post on Grief after Suicide this week, titled “Survivors Turned Bloggers Share Stories of Love, Loss, Pain, Healing” (http://bit.ly/survivorbloggers), and I just wanted to pass along the closing sentence of the post directly to you: “I applaud these bloggers’ efforts to share their stories of love and loss, and I hope their voices continue to contribute to the healing that survivors of suicide loss are looking for and deserve to find.”

Sincerely,
Franklin

P.S. If you want to receive my monthly newsletter — which is based on the posts on my blog — please send me your email, and I’ll sign you up …
on February 18, 2013 at 6:27 pm | Reply Marjorie Antus

Hi Franklin. Once again, thank you. I’m now reading your blog and all the other suicide bereavement blogs you have highlighted. They’ll be appearing soon in my blogroll. Thank you for the steadfast work you’re doing on behalf of all of us who are bereaved by suicide.
on August 16, 2013 at 12:37 am | Reply Susan Auerbach

Hi Marjorie,

I am a recent suicide survivor who found my way to your blog through the Grief After Suicide newsletter, noted above. I appreciate the tone you have established on this blog and the deep sincerity and sensitivity that comes through on your posts. It’s helpful to see how you intertwine your own experience with the lessons of books on the topic. I’m going to have to ponder what you said about love and forgiveness, especially now as we approach the Jewish High Holidays. But having lost my son Noah, 21, barely 5 months ago, it may be too soon for me to reach that place . . .

I wanted to let you and your readers know about my blog,
Walking the Mourner’s Path After a Child’s Suicide at http://afterachildssuicide.blogspot.com
which seems to be joining a growing list of parent survivor blogs. One thing that may be different about my blog and of interest to some is that it is trying to document the early stages of suicide bereavement, bearing witness in real time as stages of the experience unfold, rather than writing about it in retrospect years later.

I invite you to visit my blog and would be most grateful, if you find it useful, if you could help spread the word about it to your readers and others in your community. Thanks so much.

Yours,
Susan
on August 16, 2013 at 1:33 am | Reply Marjorie Antus

Dear Susan, thank you for your kind remarks about my blog. Please know how sorry I am for the death of your son and the raw pain I’m sure you’re experiencing every day.

Forgiveness for suicide takes a long, long time. In my case, it took a dozen years of effort to get to a place of forgiveness for my daughter. Five months (and even five years) after Mary’s suicide, I found the idea of forgiveness downright insulting, as if my anguish could be talked away with holy-sounding words.

I will certainly read your blog. Thank you for the real-time approach which will add greatly to our understanding of suicide bereavement. I will also pray for you and yours in this time of excruciating loss.

Blessings of peace,
Marjorie
- on October 29, 2013 at 12:56 am | Reply Susan Auerbach
  
  Hi again Marjorie,
  
  Thank you for your understanding re: forgiveness and for the continuing tender insights of your blog.
  I wanted to let you know I referenced your blog a few weeks ago in discussing Jewish concepts of sin and forgiveness on the occasion of the Yom Kippur holiday. Here is the post FYI: http://afterachildssuicide.blogspot.com/2013/09/approaching-yom-kippur-on-sin.html
  
  In shared sorrow,
  Susan
on August 6, 2014 at 4:31 pm | Reply Kathrin Olbrich

Dear Marjorie,

I just found your post about last year’s Out of the Darkness Community Walk in Washington, DC and would like to thank you for your help spreading the word. I am this year’s walk event manager and would like to ask you, whether you would be interested in spreading the word for this year’s OOTD Walk September, 20 http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=2611 or join us at the day of event as a walker or even as a social media ambassador, blogging from the event. This year we also offer the opportunity to sign up as a virtual walker for those who are not able to participate in person, but still would like to be a part of the event. Virtual walkers can also follow us on Twitter @AFSP_DCWalk or Instagram http://instagram.com/afsp_ncac.

Please feel free to contact me, if you have any questions and I hope to see you at walk!

Thanks a lot,
Kathrin
- on August 6, 2014 at 5:25 pm | Reply Marjorie Antus
  
  Hi Kathrin, thanks for this notice about the OOTD Walk. I’m only too happy to publicize this worthy event. My husband and I made the Walk last October in Manassas, Virginia, and I’m still wearing the shirt to the gym where people do actually seem to notice it!
  
  Unfortunately, he and I will be making a National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Walk in Northern Virginia on September 20 and unable to join your Walk that day. However, pLease let me know how I can help ahead of time or afterward.
  
  Peace and every blessing,
  Marjorie
on August 12, 2014 at 11:37 am | Reply Kathrin Olbrich

Hello Mary, so sorry for my late reply, but I only just now saw your post. I really appreciate that you will help us spread the word! It is a pity that you can’t join us, but Manassas will walk the week after, if you are interested in joining them. The best way to support us is to spread the word to family, friends and colleagues (check out our website for flyers). We are still looking for volunteers for the day-of event and for sponsors for our goody bags (fruit, granola, bars, water etc.). Once more, thank you soooo much for your support and don’t hesitate to reach out to me, if you need more information! All the best, Kathrin
on November 5, 2018 at 10:55 pm | Reply Brian Cahill

Dear Marjorie, Ron Rolheiser told me about your book. I just finished it. Two quotes jumped out and captured for me your earned wisdom, knowledge and grace in light of your daughter’s death: “Your’e just not that powerful” and “Of all my grieving tasks, owning up to my blindness, and giving way to God’s deep mysteriousness were among the most arduous.”

I lost my oldest son to suicide 10 years ago and I lost my daughter to suicide 2 years ago. I published a book earlier this year about my police officer son and Ron was kind enough to endorse it (Cops, Cons, and Grace, A Father”s Journey Through His Son’s Suicide). I just wrote my first piece about my daughter (“Just Say The Words”, National Catholic Reporter, Nov 4).

Thank you for your powerful and grace filled writing and your great and sacred work.

God bless,

Brian Cahill
on November 11, 2018 at 2:01 am | Reply Marjorie Antus

Brian, thank you. I appreciate your kinds words and deeply respect the painful place from which you have written about the death of your son. That your daughter has also died by suicide is nearly impossible to fathom. Please know of my sincere prayers for you and your entire family.