HUMBOLDT - Survivors gather. They remember. They even talk.
They may not want to leave the house, let alone openly discuss what's happened, but survivors of suicide can find a comforting welcome at monthly meetings of the Survivors of Suicide Loss support group in Humboldt.
Passing time doesn't lessen the grief, though it helps control that grief.
"It was total devastation," said Gary Adams, of Humboldt, who lost an older brother to suicide 40 years ago. "Dec. 16, 1968, just nine days before Christmas. My parents never got over it. I don't share with casual strangers. I let people think I'm an only kid."
Adams said his brother, Dennis, then 23, was a graduate student at Iowa State University.
"He left sort of a note, a long letter to his ex-girlfriend, and shot himself in the mouth," Adams said. "It was a love triangle situation, and he was on the losing side. Those were pretty nasty times, too. He'd just run out of deferments and the draft was breathing down his neck."
Adams talks about his brother's death during the monthly support group offered by the Survivors of Suicide Loss, at times able to talk, other times able only to nod. He wants to talk, he said, because his own sons are interested in what kind of person his brother was.
"I think I have less anger now and more understanding," he said. "He was my hero. I admired that guy so much. I was in seventh grade at the time, and my folks never wanted to have Christmas again."
His parents, Bob and Blanche Adams, now live at Rolfe Care Center.
When Adams and his wife, Kimberly, were married, she carried no such baggage, and when his sons, Nicholas and Jacob, were born, the holidays were happy again. That doesn't mean he can forget.
"Depression was a long-standing thing," he said. "It runs in my family. Sad people see other people being happy and wonder what's wrong with them, why can't they be happy?"
Adams isn't taking any chances with SAD - seasonal affective disorder - which depresses some people.
"I've got a shop on the farm," he said. "I've got enough lights in there, it's like an operating room."
If someone looks depressed or unhappy, Adams said, "love him, support him and tell him tomorrow will be a better day."
That's the kind of support he gets at group, which meets from 10 a.m. to noon on the second Saturday of the month at the Humboldt County Extension office, 272 Sumner Ave.
Kim Vitzthum, of Humboldt, is co-coordinator of the support group with her son, Scott, whose girlfriend died by suicide.
"About a year ago he and I went out to Chicago and took facilitator training with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention," she said. "We're hoping other survivors out there, who don't have anybody to talk to, will want to come and talk to other survivors."
Adams nodded before adding, "It took me 39 years to come out of my shell."
It's important, Vitzthum said, that people don't let the way someone died be the only thing they remember about him or her. And they shouldn't think they're alone in their grief.
Each year more than 30,000 people in the United States die by suicide.
More than 425,000 people are treated in emergency departments for self-inflicted injuries each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Firearms are the most commonly used method of suicide among men, while poisoning is more common in women.
At this time, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States among people ages 18 to 65, the 11th leading cause overall.
Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
"Survivors can come here and talk about who they lost and how it happened without the stigma following them in the door," Vitzthum said.
"We want people to know that mental illness is a real illness," Adams added. "It's not anything to be ashamed of. Because of family history, I feel more at risk. It's like dropping a rock in a bathtub, the ripples go out."
And sometimes it takes a support group with other survivors of death by suicide to help a person through the tough times.
Contact Sandy Mickelson at (515) 573-2141 or smickelson@messengernews.net