I wrote this on the 10-year anniversary (July 2025) of my brother’s death—or at least, it’s the day we found out what happened to him. But I never hit publish, and I’m not really sure why. This week we lost a woman in our church to suicide, and to say it shocked us all is an understatement of massive proportions. Becky Shellabarger worked in the church office and with the youth group. She was cheerful and encouraging and always helping others. Nobody realized how badly she was hurting behind her kind smile, though.
I can’t even imagine what her husband and son are going through, and I have been praying for them as often as they come to mind – which has been a lot.
My family was spared seeing my brother due to the circumstances. He’d actually been missing since early June.
In my heart, I knew. His dogs were his life, and the fact that he gave them up sent up every kind of red flag in my mind. But I am an optimist at heart, and I wanted to believe that maybe the story playing in my head wasn’t the true one.
And he’d done it before—disappeared for years without a word – so it wasn’t like it was outside the realm of possibility.
Ten years is both a long time and the blink of an eye, and goodness knows, the world is very different than it was back in 2015. But I still remember what I was doing. It was a warm summer evening, and I was frying up hamburgers. My boys were both teenagers at that time. My youngest was away at camp, and my older was probably out back playing basketball if I had to guess.
When the phone rang, and my mom told me – in a surprisingly calm voice – that a police officer had come about Scott, I remember going very still and my stomach dropping. Now I knew what God had meant when he kept pressing the feeling in my heart and mind that Scott was safe and deeply loved whenever the worry about where he was would try to pull me under.
Because even though Scott was no longer here with us, even in those first moments of shock and tidal wave grief, I knew without any shadow of doubt that my brother really was safe and finally whole. The mental illness that had plagued him all of his adult life was finally healed.
But the pain of losing him that way, from suicide, was suffocating.
Grieving someone you’ve lost to suicide is a different kind of grief. And I don’t say that like this is some kind of contest for which loss is the hardest. I mean, who would want to win that prize even if it were true, and loss is loss. But with suicide, it’s never God’s will that someone takes their own life, and there is a lot of second-guessing about what you could have done differently that haunts you. The if-onlys can be very loud if you let them. And there’s a kind of survivor’s guilt too.
The grief has become a dull ache over time, but just like any injury, certain things will make the pain flare – sometimes out of nowhere. A memory. A picture. A dog collar. A couple of years ago, I was cleaning out a closet, and I found an OSU notebook my brother had bought my oldest son. He’d put a note in it. When I saw his handwriting and read his words, I sobbed. It was like I’d just lost him; the grief was so sharp.
I think the worst thing about suicide is all the lost opportunities. Obviously, when you lose someone to any kind of death, there is sadness and that sense of your loved one missing out on important moments, but it wasn’t their choice to leave. I know my dad dearly wanted to be at my younger son’s high school graduation, and I’ve often wished I could have shown him my books, seen him hold them in his hands. I know he would have embarrassed me half to death (while I was secretly beyond tickled) by proclaiming to anyone who would listen that this was his daughter, the author.
But my brother chose to go.
And there is something deeply painful in knowing that we weren’t enough to keep him here. I know that mental illness changes the way people feel and think, and that for my brother, life had become unbearable and hopeless. There is a lie that satan is very good at telling that whispers to those suffering with suicidal thoughts that everyone would be better off without them. It still makes me sad that our love wasn’t enough to overcome that lie.
I guess the other reason I decided to revisit this post and finally hit publish is to encourage anyone who is struggling with thoughts of suicide to please tell someone. I can 100% guarantee you that your loved ones will NOT be happier without you around. Your loss will gut them and leave a scar that won’t ever go away.
You are loved and wanted. God created you with tender care, and while suicide doesn’t keep you from His presence if you are His child, He wouldn’t want you to come home to Him before your time. He has plans for you.
Below is the suicide hotline, available by text or phone call.
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Call or Text or Chat the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline988. Hours are available 24/7 and the cost is free.
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ORText HOME to 741741 to reach a trained Crisis Counselor through Crisis Text Line, a global not-for-profit organization. Free, 24/7, confidential.
