niceice
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2003
- Messages
- 1,792
Robin R. Gray
April 14, 1954 to June 1, 2005
Robin has missed her daughter Niki terribly since Niki passed away on February 1, 2005 due to a long term terminal illness which both she and Robin fought valiantly since Niki was diagnosed when she was five years old. The tragedy of Niki’s death was apparently impossible for Robin to overcome and she tragically ended her life while I was at work during the afternoon of Wednesday, June 1st exactly fifteen months to the day from Niki’s death. There are a lot of ways that I can think of to try and rationalize Robin’s actions, but the most accurate assessment is really that she and Niki were lifelong best friends who seemed more like sisters than mother and daughter to those who knew them best and it is apparent that the pain of Niki’s passing was outweighed by the pain that Robin felt over the loss of her friends and family who remained by her side… This is not to say that she did not cherish every one of us, but rather that the pain of Niki’s passing was simply more powerful and death became a viable solution, even if only for a moment, for ending that pain once and forever.
Funeral Services were held for Robin on Tuesday, June 7th at four o’clock in the afternoon at the 100F Historic Cemetery located on Douglas Street in Roseburg and I was simply stunned by the vast number of people who were in attendance. Flowers and such are not necessary, if you feel that you must do something then make a donation to something appropriate like The Jennifer Baker Fund which is a suicide survivors group here in Oregon that serves the community by providing suicide education services to schools and churches... Robin''s obituary can be found here for those who want to know a little more about her life.
Those of you who knew Robin well know that she loved life. She was also an extremely generous and unselfish person. Rarely serious… Always playful… Beautiful and young at heart… Most of us who were really close to her knew that she mourned Niki deeply, but even I did not realize the depths of her depression because she was so good at hiding her emotions. Many of the people I have spoken with are angry and that is a viable emotion. Many are sad which is also appropriate. Many feel that this was an extremely selfish act and I agree. However I remind everybody that this was the action of a person who was clearly suffering an agony which few of us can imagine or relate to, the death of a child who was also a life long best friend… The relationship that Robin and Niki shared ran far deeper than the traditional role of mother and daughter. I know that it must have been terribly difficult for Robin to end her life amidst all of the plans that we had been making and for as much as she cared for me. To that regard, I ask that you try to recognize her actions as an act of desperation to end a very deep pain and not as an act of selfishness because the person who did this is not the same Robin who we all knew and loved.
For those of you who are more than a little shaken or would like to understand more about what might cause a person to end their life or how to cope with the feelings that arise from being a survivor of suicide, download this document off of our web site www.niceice.com/SOS_handbook.pdf it is written by a man who lost his wife to suicide and it provides some interesting insight. If nothing else, it validated a lot of the feelings that I’ve had over the past two weeks and allowed me to experience them without guilt. I am surrounded by good friends and family and have recently begun to return to some of the daily business activities that require my attention and expect to return to normal business activities within a week or two.
Warmest Regards,
Todd
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