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Twenty-Five Years Ago

Barbara Hust
Posted 5/13/21

It was Spring in the year 1996. There will never be another Spring like that one.

Only someone who has gone through the death of someone close as the result of suicide can understand the intense …

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Twenty-Five Years Ago

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It was Spring in the year 1996. There will never be another Spring like that one.

Only someone who has gone through the death of someone close as the result of suicide can understand the intense sorrow that follows.

My husband of 30 years, Phil, was a gentle and loving man. He was a wonderful husband and a great father to Dan and Becky. He struggled with depression and had gone to a local doctor who prescribed a drug called Paxil. The drug aggravated his depression and put him in a state of desperation. As much as I loved Phil, I did not know what was going through his head and what he was planning. He got up very early that Sunday morning, left a note on the kitchen island and took his life.

Why am I writing about this heart wrenching event these 25 years later? There are many reading this sad account who are contemplating suicide right now and it is to these people that I write.

My husband wrote in his last note that we would be better off without him and that may very well be the way you are feeling. Let me firmly say this: suicide is a permanent action to a temporary condition. Things change. Things get better. However, once a thought of suicide turns to the action of suicide there leaves no opportunity to experience the healing power of God on a desperate soul.

I have often asked myself what would be different in my life all these years since 1996 if my husband were still alive. I don't know the answer to that question but I do know that the pain of Phil's death is still very real in my heart and mind. I certainly would have chosen that we could have grown old together.

There have been many things that God has allowed me to be a part of since Phil's death. Things that Phil would have felt great joy to be a part of, but that was not to be. I believe that Phil is in heaven now. He is free from that depression that plagued him. Phil had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and served Him during his life. God knows the heart of each one of His creations and He was with Phil on that Spring morning in 1996.

Hope Ministries is a Christian counseling center, and we are here to help. If you would like to speak confidentially with someone, give us a call at 482-5300.

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