Companion to an Untold Story

Project

182 Project. May we think about suicide as a construction project or a creative one? Does it have a planning phase and a construction phase like a new apartment complex, or pre- and postproduction like a movie? If Joel envisioned the project (or ratcheted up a plan hatched over decades, if I believe Barbara) when his father unexpectedly survived his health crisis, it had several phases, completed over a span of months, and Joel would not have pinpointed the completion date until very near the end. The chosen day was the result of fulfilling all the prior steps: it was time, the final letter in the outline. When the last items of life were disposed of, there was no reason to linger. My writing about Joel’s suicide has been what—A construction ? A creative project? A poem? An exercise in failure? A stone I push up the hill only to have it roll down and crush me? A circular story? I was included in Joel’s life and his self-authored ending by virtue of being married to his best friend. Soon after his death I began writing about the change it wrought in me, questioning my role, what I knew and what I didn’t know. These questions , I have found, can never be laid to rest. I never absorbed the aftershocks the way Richard did. The material took a shape 183 within me, like an egg that had been fertilized and was growing , attached to my uterine walls. But it was a shape I failed to realize again and again. Still, I kept trying, unsure whether the labor would ever end or just beget another failure.85 85 First formal articulation, “The Substitute Teacher: Notes of a Suicide,” circa 1999–2000. After reading the draft, my agent wanted addition of qualities I had decided were not within the scope of my project: she wanted me to be a coroner and clinician, biographer and investigative reporter running interviews with the remaining family members. Second formal articulation, “Secretary of Death,” circa 2006. Resurrected, reconceived. This time an editor suggested fictionalizing Joel so that I could invent a more interesting character with more exciting and uplifting plot lines. There would be a dramatic twist in the story line—he’d meet a woman who would change his life; a treatment would be found to control Joel’s diabetes and allow him to live a normal life. There was no end to the possibilities one could imagine, transforming Joel’s story into something vibrant and pleasing. But I couldn’t do it. I felt compelled to tell the truth as best I could, without the filter of fiction. This felt like an obligation even if it doomed me to failure. ...