FEELING JOINED

These friends all knew me since Andrew’s early childhood—Karen since before he was born.

As we were walking home, I was next to Joan who had dropped off some of her beautiful peonies for me on Andrews’s death day with a wonderful card remembering Andrew. 

As I was thanking Joan for these kind gifts, I felt what a salve, other peoples remembrances of Andrew are to me. Somehow, the spontaneous sharing of my loss by these friends is an indescribable luxury.

 I could feel my loss while being supported. I felt joined

MY EXTENDED FAMILY

All my extended Wallingford family, as they are now,  have managed to duplicate the caring that I have with my real sisters and brothers.

 What is it that happens to me when I am in the presence of all these friends?   I feel love, stimulation, annoyance, joy, peace, discoveries, conflicts, and competition, containment, humor, acceptance, judgment, and compassion.

 Most of all I feel gratitude for the guidance on how to be a better person by being a better friend. 

WHAT WOULD i DO WITHOUT THEM

I was taking a walk yesterday with some very good friends. We have been walking every Saturday morning for many years. Karen, Lynn, Joan and I were the regulars with Connie joining us sometime. Now that she has relocated to Florida and the beach, we see her less often

I have known these women since our kids were little. What a great resource now and in the past. When I stop to think about all the kindness that has come my way, it literally astounds me. My heart beats faster. What would I do without them? 

A GIFT

I told each of my brothers and sisters separately that I needed them to come, that I could not do this alone. They said when do you want us and I said right now. All of my sisters were at my house by 3 AM, coming from the DC metropolitan area and my brothers Tom and Dave who were in Mt. Airy Maryland and the Baltimore suburbs came the next day. My youngest brother John came from Kansas soon after.

Marnie and Lou went over to tell Lynn and Bill next door. They came over to join us immediately and would stay at our side continually as we endured the wake and the funeral and days and weeks beyond.

Being embraced by our community of family and friends was a gift. We absolutely needed it to move us from day to day.

It felt like they literally carried us or showed us the way or did it for us or for so many days after they fed us and expected nothing of us.

THERE WAS NOTHING MORE FOR US TO DO

Realizing there was nothing more for us there I said “Let’s go home”.

By now it was late maybe 11 PM. We all went back to our house and crowded into our sunroom. I said, “Let’s call Melissa”. 

Then I called all seven of my living siblings and told them the sad news one by one. I said, “Andrew’s gone”, not really being able to say Andrew is dead.

When I asked where Andrew was, they told us that they had taken Andrew’s body out by a back road through the local college and then directly to the coroner’s office.

 We would be able to see him after a mandatory autopsy. The police were professional and gentle with us. 

The reality of it all was and is simply unimaginable. 

A SECOND SEARCH

The police explained that after their previous call when they had searched the trestle and found nothing, an older officer had come on duty late in the day and he said “let me go look, I know the area pretty well’. He then did another search. 

He went and he found Andrew already dead. Andrew had his wallet on him. 

The police told us that they then had to wait to shut down the trains so they could get a team in to retrieve Andrew’s body

EILEEN REMEMBERED

My memory was that when they heard, Marnie and Eileen began screaming and wailing. Marnie went after one of the crew and then threw herself onto the ground and pounded the earth.  I recently shared this memory with both Marnie and Eileen and they added the following:

I (Eileen) was driving my car up the hill near the tracks and saw you and Dad and all of the lights at the train crossing.   I stopped my car in the middle of the road and Marnie, Rich and I ran to you.  You were wearing a black dress with a fuchsia fleece. You said, "He's gone" .  

 I (Eileen) did not scream or cry initially.   I (Eileen) just sat down on the train tracks in shock and disbelief, and you and/ or Dad told quickly told me to “Get it up”, that it was not safe to sit on the tracks.   

Then Marn started screaming, “Where’s my brother?", over and over again. Rich had to physically lift Marnie off the firemen.    

You and I (Eileen) walked back to the house holding hands.   We walked down Possum hollow and then up through the neighbor’s yard.   Not sure how Dad and Marn got home I (Eileen) think Rich got my car off the road.  Remember Melissa being there soon after we got home

RECOVERED

Finally, the officers in charge arrived and came right over to us and asked us if we were Andrew Gillis’s parents. 

We confirmed that we were and then they told us that they had found Andrew at the bottom of the trestle and had recovered his dead body.

BEGINNING OF MY NUMBNESS

We stood on the tracks for another several minutes. 

It was the beginning of my numbness, which continued to paralyze me emotionally for the most of the next two years.

 I just stared down the tracks and waited. I do not know what I expected to see, maybe Andrew. 

JUST COME HOME

While standing at the railroad crossing, either I called Marnie and Eileen or they called me. 

What I remember saying was , "Come home" and Marnie said, “What’s happening” and unable to think or be rational, I screamed, “Just come home immediately”, which of course they did. 

I would not know until several days later that Rich had gone down to their basement where Andrew had been living and found his computer open and Andrew’s note to us. 

THEY SAID THEY KNEW NOTHING

We parked the car in our driveway and went immediately to the crossing. I took my cell phone with me. When we got down to the crossing, John and I approached several young men who were nearby and asked them for information. They said they knew nothing.   

THE MORE ANGUISH I FELT

After seeing all the emergency vehicles at the railroad crossing the night we learned Andrew was dead, we continued home with wild thoughts flying, praying and trying to imagine that maybe it is something else. The harder I tried to talk myself out of it the more anguish I felt. 

THEY HAD SHUT DOWN THE TRAINS

On the night Andrew’s body was found there were a 10 to 15  men standing around the vehicles; but unlike last night when the road crew was there and their equipment was beeping and men were talking, the night Andrew died it was completely silent. 

It would be a while before we figured out that they had shut the trains down in order to search more thoroughly for Andrew and to bring his body out from the deep ravine where the police found him. 

THE WARNING GOT TO US TOO LATE

Back to the night the police found Andrew’s body.  

John and I came home to our house alone and here I get confused. Our neighbor, Bill, called someone, and said that there were many rescue vehicles at the railroad crossing and cautioned that it might be best if John and I did not go down there. 

The warning got to us too late. We had already crossed the tracks on our way home from the wedding reception and seen the scene. Spotlights and vehicle headlights lit the crossing bright as day and emergency equipment filled the intersection. 

YOU DON'T NEED ME ANYMORE

Let me just get this remembrance in here while I am thinking of it. We see a lot of Angus. Either he is at our house or we were down in DC. I am a very smitten grandmother, GG. 

One day when Angus was less than a year old, he was sitting in his high chair ( the same chair our kids used) at our house and I was feeding him. Andrew came in and I said stand over by Angus so I can get a picture of the two of you together. 

Andrew leaned into Angus, looked at me, and smiled. He said, “You don’t need me anymore”. I quickly reassured him that no one could take his place, but that stayed with me and would be something I thought about after Andrew died. Were we keeping Andrew with us to meet our/my need to have someone to care for, to worry about? 

WE LEFT THE WEDDING

We told the kids that we were going to leave the wedding. We told them to stay if they wanted to but no one was able to be at the party. 

We all left. John and I went to Church Road and Marnie went with Rich and Lou to their house, about three miles from our home. 

Marnie had left Angus, their 15-month-old son, our first and only grandchild at the time, with Corbin at their home in Washington, DC. They had been away from him recently and did not want to leave him again so soon. 

HOPING JOHN WAS RIGHT

We got a call from the police at about 7PM, saying that they had found nothing in their search of the train trestle area. John seemed relieved and said, “Maybe this will turn out okay.” I did not share his relief. I wanted to go home.

 I was inconsolable and angry with John for trying to put a positive spin on this when I felt so bad. Also, I hoped desperately that John was right

I RELUCTANTLY WENT TO THE WEDDING

With encouragement from John, I went reluctantly to Katie’s wedding reception. I was a basket case. I could not find any peace. I was agitated and trying not to bring our anxiety into the wedding celebration. I could no eat or even sit down. I did not want a drink. 

JUMPING FROM THE TRESTLE

After Marnie revealed her conversation with Andrew to the police, I told the very wonderfully understanding and supportive police officers that when Andrew first got sick, he and I had talked about whether he had any thoughts of suicide. 

He said yes, quite often. I asked him if he had thought about how he would do it and he said yes—the train trestle. At the time that made sense to me because, we had had two recent suicides by local young men who jumped off the very high trestle near our home. 

I asked them to check there for us. I had little hope at this time of Andrew still being alive. The officers assured us they would do a thorough search. 

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US

 Looking back it is so easy to see how complicit we all were in being unable to see what was about to happen despite multiple clues on Andrew’s part. I know I never asked him if he had any thoughts of suicide at this time. He had told me when he first got sick that he would never do that to us. 

But in the moment things for me were quite different. When I heard Marnie's story, I was in disbelief

Marnie had been a trained responder on the Washington DC Suicide Prevention Hotline. Marnie had not suspected he might be considering suicide. It took every ounce of control for me not to let out, “Are you kidding me, why didn't you tell us?”

ANDREW TALKED TO MARNIE

Andrew had talked to Marnie in April about how badly he was feeling and that he was going to try going off his meds, eating healthy and exercising and if that did not work he was going to do something about it on May 28.

            He asked Marnie not to tell John and me about going off the meds. Marnie thought that when he said he was going to do something about it he meant going back on the meds. She said that did not tell us because she felt Andrew was trying to manage the situation himself and she did not want to betray his trust.

           She told us that she never considered that he was talking about taking his own life.  However, she said now, I think he must have been telling me that if he did not get better he would take his life

SOMETHING TO TELL US

The police came to the house and we were all outside. It was a beautiful day. How could Andrew be dead?  We had called all his friends and exhausted every other possibility. When the police came to our house, we told them about Andrew’s psychiatric history.  

Then all of a sudden, Marnie was sobbing. She said she had something to tell us.