#ShatteringStigmas Guest Review: The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

The Pain Stays, and That’s Okay: Review (Sort of) of The Last Time We Say Goodbye

I am so not surprised to learn that author Cynthia Hand lost a brother to suicide when he was a teen and she was a young adult.  The grief, pain, numbness, guilt, “what-ifs,” and denial (ohhhhh, the denial!) Lex displays in this book are terrifically believable.  This is what #ownvoices writing is like–even if you or I may have responded differently to the situation, we can tell that Lex’s voice is infused with authentic, lived experience.

I know some readers were dismayed that there was no prevention/cure plan offered, no “when and how we should intervene to prevent suicide.”  Lex does list some of the factors that identified Ty as at risk–but some, like “being male,” are hardly reliable warning signs per se.  She does address the fact that because the idea of a loved one killing themself is so unpleasant and painful–not to mention, so unthinkable to anyone who’s never been suicidal–that his family maybe didn’t monitor him closely enough or offer him enough mental health support.  But the bloody awful truth is that suicide is NOT rational, and therefore is NOT predictable.  People who battle depression and other mental illnesses that lead to suicide have brains that tell them they will never be better, they will never feel okay (let alone good), and that they are doing their loved ones a favor by just bowing out.  

There are things we can do, as people who love people with mental illness, to REDUCE the chance that they will kill themselves.  We can keep deadly weapons out of the house.  We can take signs of suicidal ideation seriously and insist on mental health treatment, sustained over time.  On a more global scale, we can support better health insurance for mental health care, and support local efforts to do things that make public suicide attempts simply harder to pull off For example, locally, the number of people jumping off a famous “suicide bridge” dropped to zero in the five years since fencing was put up, and successful reaching out for help increased when suicide hotline numbers were prominently posted on ALL local bridges.  (Portland has a lot of bridges, okay?  It’s a thing.)  We can save lives, I really believe, by participating in events like “Shattering Stigmas,” which make it more likely that people will know what to watch for and how to seek help.

But sometimes we will fail.  Someone we love beyond measure, someone we think has “every reason to live” will fall victim to their illness.  As surely as “having a positive attitude” and “fighting like hell” will never be enough to prevents all cancer deaths, “minimizing risks” and “letting them know they’re loved” is not going to prevent all suicide deaths.  There may be better medical and societal treatments in our future, but sometimes people die.  Sometimes people die on purpose.

And it’s horrible.  It’s so sad.  It’s so painful.  It’s gut-wrenching and will never, ever be okay.  

But the survivors, the ones who’ve lost one of their lights, can be okay again.  Grief doesn’t end, but misery and guilt can.  And that is what Lex learns, once she lets herself feel them.  She will always mourn her brother. Cynthia Hand clearly still mourns hers.  But both author and character know that guilt and bitterness are unnecessary.  That you can celebrate the life that was, even if it ended senselessly and too soon.  It’s an poignantly hopeful note for a book that begins in bleakness.  

If you love someone with a serious mental illness, I highly recommend finding a local NAMI Family-to-Family group for education and support.