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BY KATHI STEARNS
Staff Writer
FAYETTEVILLE--Edward Hamill was a scholar.
A graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in political science,
he loved learning and memorizing historical and political statistics and facts.
Though not an athlete himself, he could recite the career averages of every
player in professional baseball, basketball or football. Professionally he
worked as a substitute teacher in the Fayette County School System and dreamed
of traveling overseas while teaching English as a second language.
Carol and Tom Hamill were very proud of their son. He was a good student. He
had a great relationship with his parents, a steady girlfriend, and he had just
taken the first step in fulfilling his dream of studying abroad in England.
Nothing and no one warned the Hamills that within a week Ed would drink a
case of beers, close himself up in their garage and asphyxiate himself from the
carbon monoxide of his truck. And no one warned them of the excruciating
questions and pain they would experience as a result. No one warned them they
would have to wait for time and a personal touch from the Lord to heal their
broken hearts. But, fortunately, someone had assured them their family of faith
would help in times of crisis. And it did.
Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. Statistics from the
National Center for Health reveal that more Americans die from suicide than
from AIDS or homicide. It is known primarily as a male tragedy since men are
4.5 times more likely to kill themselves than women. Every day approximately 81
Americans take their own lives leaving behind approximately 4 million
incredulous, grieving survivors looking for some way to bear the loss and live
with the pain.
On June 5, l995, Carol and Tom Hamill, their daughter, Ann, and son, Tim,
became four of these survivors. It’s still hard to share the story, but
Carol says that telling it is part of the healing process and the task of
grieving.
Carol, at that time the archdiocesan consultant of adult catechesis, and her
husband were returning home from a week-long conference of the National
Association of Lay Ministry in Colorado. During their time away, they had
talked with their son several times because they were aware that he had an
important decision to make about whether or not he would study in England.
Midway through the week, Ed informed his parents that he had decided to go to
Europe. He had even mailed his check to reserve his spot. Ed knew that his
decision would impact his girlfriend of more than three years, but he told his
parents he was going to have a talk with her over the weekend. His main
concern, however, seemed to be an exam at Georgia State University where he was
studying to get his teaching certificate.
“When I talked with him, he was very positive about his decision to go
to England,” Carol said. “He knew that being in England would change
his relationship with his girlfriend who was in medical school. He told me he
didn’t think it was fair to keep her tied up while he was in England. I
talked with him for about an hour. We discussed that he was not ending the
relationship with her. He was simply changing it. We told him we loved him, and
that we would be there for him.”
Carol talked with her son the day after that conversation to see how the
talk with his girlfriend had gone. She knew it would likely have been a painful
conversation for both parties. Ed told her that he had spent eight hours with
his girlfriend. He said they both recognized that the change would be painful,
but they agreed to try it. He told his mother he was going to focus on the exam
that was scheduled five days later.
It was only a day later that the Hamills came home from their conference.
They had tried to reach their son on the phone that afternoon before they
boarded their plane. However, since there was no answer, they assumed he was at
Georgia State studying for his exam.
Upon arriving at the house, Carol and her husband pulled into the driveway
but found the garage closed. Tom parked and began to unload luggage while Carol
opened the garage. When she did, she smelled the odor of carbon monoxide and
found her son’s truck running.
At first, Carol said she thought her son might have left the truck running
while he ran upstairs to pick up one last thing before he left to study at
Georgia State. She turned the car off and walked back toward the garage door.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw her son propped up against it.
“I saw him there and yelled ‘Ed, get up!’” she said.
“I kept saying that to him over and over. My head knew he was gone, but my
heart wasn’t willing to accept it. I was afraid to touch him because I
knew if I touched him, I would know that he was dead.”
Carol screamed for her husband, who was still taking luggage into the house,
to come into the garage. The first thing Tom did was to shake his son. When he
did not move, he poured cold water on Ed to see if he could get any kind of
response. Again there was none.
Carol had run into the house to call 911. Before the paramedics arrived, the
couple began CPR on their son. As the police arrived they secured the area and
confiscated a trash can as evidence to determine if Ed had left a suicide note.
They found hundreds of pieces of a note from Ed which they reconstructed to
find the answer to their question.
Because the suicide note had been torn up into little pieces the police
stated that Ed had tried to change his mind about taking his life. This was
also evidenced by the fact that he was found near the door of the garage, away
from, and not in, the running car. The amount of alcohol Ed consumed likely
impeded his ability to remove himself from the garage.
“He looked as if he had sat down to rest,” Carol said. “He
looked so peaceful.”
The EMTs worked on Ed for a good while, trying to breath life back into him.
They finally gave up in the face of no response.
Carol said she was still unable to accept the reality that her son had
actually taken his life. When she saw the EMTs stop working on her son, she
asked if he was going to be okay.
“The EMT told me Ed was gone,” Carol said. “At that moment I
remember gasping and inhaling deeply but never exhaling. I let out a scream and
felt a wrenching pain in my abdomen where I had carried my son. I honestly
believed that if I let myself cry, I would die, myself, in my own tears,”
she said.
“That night, when my husband and I discovered our lifeless son in our
garage, it was as if our blood stopped running and our hearts stopped
beating,” Carol continued. “There had been no warning signs. Life
simply stopped. Time stood still.”
Carol called her children, her sister, Janet, Father John Koziol, OFM Conv.,
Carol’s spiritual director and parochial vicar at St. Philip Benizi
Church, Jonesboro, and Sister Loretta McCarthy, SBS, a member of Carol’s
spiritual support group at the Maisha House of Prayer.
Upon receiving Carol’s call Sister McCarthy and Father Koziol rushed to
the Hamill house. Father Koziol anointed Ed before he was removed from the
garage.
“During this most painful and tragic moment, the process of seeing my
son, who had already left this world, anointed gave me a sense of peace,”
she said. “In the midst of a pain that was indescribable, I was able to
feel the presence of the whole church and the communion of saints surround
me.”
The next few days were a blur to the Hamills. Others took over and carried
them along. Surrounded by family and friends, members of the archdiocesan
Office of Education, the parish family at St. Philip Benizi and members
of Tom’s Baptist church fellowship, the couple laid their son to rest.
“If ever the church was church for me, it was then,” Carol said.
“These people were the arms of Christ that carried us. Tom and I and our
remaining children were literally embraced the whole week. We never felt
alone.”
During the wake, which was led by Tom’s minister, Carol said they were
able to begin releasing the blame they felt.
The minister told the story of Lazarus and recalled Martha’s words,
“If only you had been here my brother would not have died.”
He encouraged the family not to deal with the “What ifs,” but
rather with the reality of the situation and what could be and will be with
God. He told them that the “What ifs” in life keep them bound and in
the tomb and would choke life out of them rather than be life giving.
“The fact was our son was gone,” Carol said. “My husband and
I couldn’t ‘What if’ and ‘If only’ ourselves and
survive this loss with any hope or expectation of ever really living again. We
realized that we had been the best parents we had known how to be. We loved our
son and we supported him. We believed that God had already accepted Ed, and now
we needed to accept life as it was. But we also knew that acceptance would take
a very long time.”
Carol said that despite the fact her love for her son was unchanged, she was
angry at his decision to end his life.
“I was angry with Ed and felt betrayed by what he did,” she said.
“In the depths of my soul I could feel his confusion about all the
decisions and changes he was facing and the fear that was behind them. The fact
that my son had tried to stop the process of killing himself gave me some sense
of peace. But the reality was that what he did, he chose to do to himself. My
anger did not diminish my love for him. I have accepted the reality of the
situation, but I will never accept his choice.”
There is a special sting to suicide that is unique among deaths, experts
say.
“It is the unfairness of the situation,” Carol said.
For two years after Ed’s death, Carol said she was emotionally and
spiritually paralyzed. It was during this time that she believes her faith
community and her church carried her.
“Though I tried to believe that someday I would feel a degree of peace
and comfort again, I just couldn’t trust that life would ever be good
again,” she said. “I knew in the deepest part of me that Mary and
Jesus were both with me during these painful times, and yet that knowledge was
something I didn’t really want because I would rather have had my son
alive and with me again.”
Time helps natural healing but people have to cope during the time of
reeling and pain.
“In my darkest moments I kept remembering a phrase Corrie Ten Boom, a
concentration camp survivor, said in The Hiding Place. ‘No pit is so deep
that God is not yet deeper,’” Carol recalled. “‘God is not
at the bottom of the pit. He is the bottom.’ I knew I was never alone in
my pain.”
Carol tried to attend a Survivors of Suicide Group to see if the support
group could help her deal with her pain and anger. Initially after three
sessions she was so overwhelmed she did not return.
And then Christ himself touched her and renewed her.
A year and a half ago, while attending the funeral of one of Ed’s
friends who had died suddenly at the age of 27, Carol said she finally was able
to begin exhaling the breath that she took on that day beside the garage when
the paramedics stopped working on her son.
“I realized at that moment that I did not need God to carry me
anymore,” she said. “I needed God to hold my hand. My heart had
finally begun the journey of catching up with my head. I started to cry,
knowing that if I cried, I could stop without totally dissolving.”
After awhile many people on the outside believe the grieving process has
ended. But for the family members, the process does not end. It just gets a
little easier day by day. Recently Carol has had the strength to return to the
Survivors of Suicide Group that had overwhelmed her three years ago.
“Ever so slowly I have come to realize that life is easier now and hope
and laughter are beginning to be a part of my life once again,” she said.
“Now I can feel not only the pain of loss, but also the promise of
hope.”
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