Sunday April 14, 2019 was a gorgeous day. The first warm and beautiful day after the longest winter I can remember. The kind of day in which the air invigorates and makes the hopes of summer circulate.
I was outside planting a tree to replace the one that died in honor of our stillborn daughter, Claudie. Dustin my 39 year old husband came outside with his briefcase and declared with a worried look on his face that he just couldn't finish a project he was working on. He had been working long, long days for over a week. This was not unusual especially this time of the year. He was a traffic engineer and worked for a private firm that when construction season came around it was usual for him to work round the clock to finish up projects. After 12 years of marriage and 25 years of knowing him, I knew better at this point then trying to lecture him on the effects of working such long hours or spending time with us instead of working all night again for a big project due Monday morning. Instead, I don't even look up at him. I just say "hurry back to us" and assume he is going to the office to work. I continue to dig a hole. Dustin mumbles something about he will come back as soon as he can. To lock the side gate. And he loves me. He ignores the kids who were excitedly planting each herb they had picked out. I don't respond. I don't care. I will see him soon enough. I think it's 5o'clock-ish.
6:09pm I get a text that said "Love you all so much, so sorry."
No explanation point. No explanation.
I respond "sorry for what??" and send him a cute pic of our 10 yo, 9 yo, and 4 yo who had just celebrated his birthday two days previous playing in the yard, thinking he was apologizing for pulling another all-nighter. He didn't respond.
6:10pm 911 operators start getting calls that "a man fell from the overpass on K10 and 435." The highest point of the overpass. Over 60 ft. To gravel below. The overpass that HE designed a couple years previous. Notice I don't say jump. No one sees him jump. This combined with this being his old job site produce confusion and questions making it impossible to grieve fully. We still to this day don't have a death certificate as the coroner's case is still pending.
It would take over two hours for the police notify me of his death. I would live two hours in oblivion. Putting kids to bed and wondering why my husband didn't answer our son's calls to him at 7:16pm or respond to more texts of the kids cutely sitting on the couch.
Close to 9pm the kids were asleep...or at least quiet. I would find out later they were awake and heard everything. I was sitting down to relax with an artisan beer I got for Dustin thinking he would enjoy the flavor but secretly excited I could enjoy a pineapple flavored beer. I turned on Keeping up with Kardashians. Why not? I could pick my tv show tonight.
Pounding on the door startles me and I start to call Dustin to say someone is trying to break in. My hands shake. The pounding gets louder. I think what could Dustin do to protect from all the way in Lenexa. I had just checked in with GPS finder and saw he was at his old job site. I thought he was going there to evaluate something for his new job site in St. Louis. Maybe he was. We will never know. I switch from dialing Dustin's number to dialing 911 and start running upstairs to hide with the kids. As I pass the door I see the police.
...and I know. I don't know how I know or why I know but I know. My mind jumped out of my body and watched from above. They won't stop saying the same thing over and over. I have to call someone to come be with me. Why?? How?? What do I tell his family? What do I tell my family? What do I tell our kids!!?? I call him instead. He doesn't answer.
The next few hours and days and weeks have been a blur filled with details I will spare you and leave the PTSD to me and therapist.
I reason I do share all these details with you is this: Dustin was not "depressed". He was not "suicidal". He was happy and looking to the future. He was planning projects on the home. Had a date planned the following Thursday with me. Shoes delivered in the mail the next day. He had just bought a new truck he had wanting for over a decade. We were planning a trip to Disney in the coming weeks. He was a deacon at our church and loved God. He loved us fiercely and was a son, brother, husband and dad who had enormous pride in all those roles. He was excited about growing old with me and voiced it regularly.
While we never know the details leading up the last minutes of Dustin's life I do know as someone has teetered on the edge, despair mixed with opportunity is fatal. Dustin was overworked, under slept and extremely anxious about a project for work. This perhaps created a perfect storm for that fatal act. The NY Times released an opinion piece the month Dustin died that states studies show it takes under 5 minutes for someone to get to that point of despair. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/sunday/suicide-prevention.html
So I share this tragic story of a man who won't see his 40 birthday, or watch his son lose his first tooth or start kindergarten or go to any father/daughter dances or see his oldest son pitch his first baseball game this Friday, because if it takes under 5 minutes to get to despair maybe it takes under five minutes to crawl out. Experts on brain/body connections states most thoughts last for under 90 seconds. They suggest feeling that emotion but letting yourself know it will pass. I would give anything to go back and tell my husband this: give yourself 5 minutes. Set your timer on your phone! Chances are despair will fade and hope will rise in the distance.
If you are a human I would bet that you have been close to or even hit despair. A wise friend and psychologist told me after losing Dustin "despair is the devil". Despair combined with opportunity is death. So please when the next time despair comes knocking answer it's evilness with time. Give yourself 5 minutes ideally more time but even 1 minute and wait then another minute and wait then another and another. Call a friend if you are able. Going to a public place can also help replace those thoughts with reality. A friend of mine who is struggles with thoughts of despair has said saying her thoughts aloud helps ground her and realized how ridiculous it is to think the world is better off without her in it.
And if there is one thing I know the world is NOT BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU!
Dustin Lee Elliott 2/19/1980-4/14/2019
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