Category Archives: GMHC

Writing About My Mother’s Suicide

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Every honest writer knows words can take you to some painful places. For me, none more so than writing about my mother’s 1992 suicide. I am, I think, about four months away from finishing the memoir and am now writing about her suicide. There is a piece in this blog called Goodbye Mother Sunday which talks about it.

No matter how much time has passed, this August 12th will mark 19 years, the soul-tearing pain and heartbreak never goes away. There are certain events in life that are so big they freeze me in place, one giant ache. This morning, writing, a conversation with her letting me know the time to end her life was coming, my head bowed down and, although I live alone, I got up and closed the door to my writing room, not entirely clear, then or now, exactly why I’d closed it Protecting myself, I suppose, though from what I don’t know.

What I do know is that she is gone, and that, I will never get over. Despite our rocky time when I was growing up, a time that culminated into my being disowned three months after my father died when I was 15,  resulting in a nearly 10-year estrangement, we reconnected not long after the birth of my daughter in 1977 and, in the last 10 years of her life, became very close friends. In fact, when it came to advocacy of all kinds we were each others number one adviser. We both worked hard for the Brady Bill and rejoiced when it became law. She helped Laotian refugees find homes and volunteered at the GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) and we both fought against the death penalty.

My mother cared deeply about many things, but not herself. In the end, I learned, she did not believe anyone loved her. She was so wrong. I loved her and my sister loved her and her grandchildren loved her; many people loved her. But sometimes our personal histories gain so much power, they destroy our ability to see ourselves clearly. It cost my mother her life.

I will finish writing about her, her suicide, and I will finish the memoir and then, I will keep living. I know that’s what she would have wanted me to do. I know it’s what I wanted her to do.

Writing My Mother’s Suicide

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Writing about my mother’s suicide in the memoir is, as you might imagine, a deeply emotional task. I can’t say it’s an unwanted to task because at least when I write the sentences I have some control over their content, and suicide, if you’ve had the misfortune to encounter it in life, is a remarkable and merciless reminder that we control very little. Even with our best efforts, we can’t stop someone from ending their life if that is what they want to do.

My mother commited suicide with a well-researched mix of drugs and alcohol on August 12, 1992. I will say nothing more about that in this essay for it is not the salient point of the essay. The salient point is this; my mother, Virginia Kahrmann, was a complete human being who does not deserve to be defined by that admittedly singular moment. Nor does she deserve to be defined by some of her rather harsh and emotionally brutal treatment of me when I grew up. Very few of us, if any, are all one thing. We are amalgams of life experience. My mother was no exception.

Her suicide was the culmination of a life that, for a variety of reasons, some I know, some I don’t, robbed her of her ability to love herself and thus her ability to believe anyone loved her. How do I know this to be true? She told me.

I once told her that her death (no matter how it came about) would be one of the biggest blows I would ever endure in life. She was completely and utterly baffled by this. “Really, Peter? Why?” I was speechless, a rare state for me.

As cruel as she could be to me at times – days after my father died when I was 15 she told me if I hadn’t been such a bastard he might have had enough strength to live – she inflicted far more damage on herself.

Yet, she was far more than the aforementioned. She was brilliant and the best conversationalist I’ve ever known. In the last 10 years of her life we became very close. I’d go to visit her in her Pearl River, New York home mid-morning, and we would talk straight through into the evening, our talks being accompanied by coffee, crackers and cheese, and going out to dinner.

We conferred regularly as we both threw all we had into fighting for the Brady Bill – a bill requiring states to have a waiting period to purchase a handgun until they had an instant check system in place – or when we fought against the death penalty, or the rights of immigrants. She countless volunteer hours to the GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) a group she referred to as the best run non-profit in the country, and worked tirelessly to help refugees from Laos find homes.

Her demons killed her love for herself and ultimately guided her into ending her own life. I am asking, hoping, that readers will not allow those demons to blind them to the beautiful person she in so many ways was, and in my heart, still is. If they do, then the demons win again, and winning again is the last thing they deserve.
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