Question, Persuade, Refer, Live

In preparation for my weekly column, I keep a running list of possible topics. I can pull themes from column A when needed, ideas to draw upon when the calendar or headlines don’t provide any inspiration. Others topic are time-sensitive, based on holidays, seasons, local events, or world news that sparks an image or idea, my column B. With the death of actor Robin Williams, “QPR” made the leap from column A to column B, for once again, an oh-so-familiar face succumbed to suicide.

Five days later, is there anything more to be written? By now, his death by hanging is old news, although it will never be old news to his family and friends, who will grieve him deeply. Just as the eyes of the world abandoned the young women kidnapped in Nigeria, so too will we soon forget Robin Williams. The reality of today’s world, spinning at the speed of the light of social media, is that my post needed to be up on Facebook by Tuesday morning, and I missed that deadline.

Yet here’s the truth. It’s not just about Robin. Oh, we loved how he could generate side-splitting laughter in ways that seemed effortless. We remember Mork saying “nanu nanu,” and we can still hear him rumble the familiar words, “Good morning, Viet Nam.” I have used his line from “Good Will Hunting” more often than I can count with folks who are struggling with the scars of the past. “It’s not your fault!”

We’ll read his daughter’s tribute tweet and sigh with the pain she is feeling, but few of us knew Robin personally. But what we do know personally is depression and her kissing cousin, suicidal ideation, a plan or a preoccupation with suicide. Some of us are on a first-name basis, while others made the acquaintance of these unwelcome cousins as they insinuated their troubling presence into our family circle, workplace, or congregation. “Depression,” writes former Ashland resident and United Methodist pastor Adam Baker, is “a sorrow that infuses blood and sinew and bone, that shades the eyes of the heart and frosts over even the windows of the soul . . . And many, many, many are touched and shaped by it.”

For me, suicide first came knocking on my door in fifth grade. We sat in alphabetical order in those days, and so JoAnn Streeter always sat behind James Stitt. One day, there was no freckle-faced boy to pass papers to me. James had killed himself, unfathomable to me.

My Philadelphia neighbor overdosed. A troubled young man in our congregation in Canton jumped ten stories. Three families in our Kroc Center circle lost loved ones to self-inflicted gunshots, and will never be the same.

What do we do? That’s where QPR comes in. QPR trains gatekeepers, people who regularly come in contact with individuals and families in distress, to question, persuade and refer. According to proponent Dr. Paul Quinnett, QPR training “strategically positions people in existing personal or professional relationships to recognize and refer” those at risk of suicide. Through the support of the Ashland County Mental Health and Recovery Board, QPR training is available so that we might engage in life-saving, caring dialogue.

If, as Adam Baker reminds us, “Hope is a weapon we [can] cling to, allowing our communal song to fill our aching world,” this practical mental health intervention has its place in hope’s arsenal, alongside professional mental health support, to combat the secrecy, shame and isolation associated with depression and self-harm.

Theologian Frederick Buechner understands: “It is absolutely crucial, therefore, to keep in constant touch with what is going on in your own life’s story and to pay close attention to what is going on in the stories of others’ lives.”

Writer Anne Lamott provides a similar perspective: “Gravity yanks us down, even a man as stunning in every way as Robin. We need a lot of help getting back up. And even with our battered banged up tool boxes and aching backs, we can help others get up, even when for them to do so seems impossible or at least beyond imagining.” As we cling to hope. As we question, persuade, refer. As we live.