This article was seen in The United Methodist Church of North Texas Conference News.
A survivor gives her insights ahead of a conference on preventing tragedy.
Shirley Weddle of St. Mark’s UMC in Mesquite knows the pain of losing a loved one to suicide. Her only child, Matthew, a gifted computer science student at the University of Texas at Dallas, died at age 22 over the July Fourth weekend in 2014.
He was “really smart, very funny, had a great smile,” she said. He was a bit of an overachiever, never taking summer breaks from school, reading textbooks for fun, and studying philosophy beginning in high school. He seemed like the typical stressed-out college student — but signs of being a stressed-out college student can also be signs of the suicidal.
Only recently has she been able to talk about his death. “It’s hard to even say that you’ve lost them,” she said.
Members of St. Mark’s UMC, which Matthew Weddle attended while growing up, joined his family and friends on Team Mariotek in the Out of the Darkness walk to prevent suicide in October.
With International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day coming up Saturday, November 19, 2016, along with a free conference that day at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas, she wants others to be aware of the danger signs and she wants to help survivors cope with their grief.
Weddle turned to Christian Survivors of Suicide at Highland Park UMC and, when that group became so large, an additional group at the church for survivors of child suicide loss. The Rev. Dawn Anderson, whose husband died by suicide, runs the Highland Park program and will be featured in a documentary that will be shown at the conference. Rev. Anderson is also on the board of the North Texas chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), which is hosting the conference and will put the documentary on its website after the event.
“I think of Dawn as God’s angel here on earth, supporting and comforting those of us who have lost someone to suicide and helping us to help others as well as ourselves,” Weddle said. “Somehow, she knows just what to say and do at the right time.”
Part of the problem in preventing suicide is the reluctance to talk about it, Weddle said.