Suicide makes people uncomfortable because it’s not a ‘simplified’ death. It’s much more complicated than cancer, or old age, and even in our relatively enlightened times it’s still stigmatised and often shrouded in shame.
So we applaud and deeply admire the brave actions of a woman who published a heartbreakingly honest obituary of her sister in her local paper the Duluth News Tribune.
Eleni Pinnow’s 31-year old sister Aletha died by suicide after a long battle with depression, and when faced with writing her obituary, she told Buzzfeed she couldn’t write one that wasn’t true to her beloved sister.
She hopes the obituary will go some way in opening “a community-wide discussion about mental health and to pull the suffocating demon of depression and suicide into the bright light of day.”
“Aletha Meyer Pinnow, 31, of Duluth, formerly of Oswego and Chicago, Ill., died from depression and suicide on Feb. 20, 2016,” wrote Eleni.
“The parents promised a tiny baby to their older daughter (who was sorely disappointed by the giant 11 pound baby that came home with them). This was an auspicious start for Aletha, who spent her life defying expectations and charting her own hilarious and unique path.
“She loved animals, theater, Halloween, Star Wars, cartoons, preparing food for loved ones, and cuddling with aforementioned animals. She did not love France (they know why) and William Shatner (who also presumably knew why). Aletha was fond of making her mom laugh until she literally cried and helping her dad do anything and everything. It is impossible to sum up a woman so caring, genuine, vivacious, hilarious, and sparkly. Those qualities were so obvious to everyone around her. Aletha was her family's whole entire world. She enriched the lives of countless colleagues and students. Unfortunately, a battle with depression made her innate glow invisible to her and she could not see how desperately loved and valued she was.
Aletha found her true passion in fifth grade when she decided to become a special education teacher. She graduated high school a year early to enroll in her future alma mater, Northern Illinois University (NIU), in anticipation of that goal. It is the ultimate understatement to say that Aletha loved working with people with disabilities (especially people on the autism spectrum). She was a special education teacher for over a decade and she was, as she was happy to tell you, awesome at it. She saw the potential and value of every single one of her students and she loved them with a ferocity that would make a rabid mother bear quiver.
If the family were to have a big pie in the sky dream, we would ask for a community-wide discussion about mental health and to pull the suffocating demon of depression and suicide into the bright light of day. Please help us break the destructive silence and stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide.”
We couldn’t help crying reading this. The saddest thing about suicide is the waste of a beautiful life, the person whose perspective is skewed due to a devastating illness – and of course the people who loved them most left behind, trying to make sense of it all.
