I have a good friend and co-worker who also lost his son to suicide a number of years ago. I will not get into the details, but if there is anything positive that came out of this event it was the fact that I became much closer to this man . . . it was hard to know what to say or what to do when I learned what had happened so I did the only two things I could do -- I brought him and his wife some sandwiches (yeah, that's me . . . always thinking of food) and more importantly I went to their house and just sat there and listened to him. Sometimes it's the words not spoken that say the most about a person.
I learned something from this experience as well . . . the family and friends from someone who has committed suicide do not want the memory of their son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, friend, etc. swept under the proverbial carpet . . . it seems so often that other folks simply want to gloss over what happened and pretend that the suicide never happened which seems to me to not be the right way to remember the person.
Vic, I know it's been a year or so, but my heart is still with you and your wife.
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."
"Death is only one of many ways to die."