• Relative or friend depressed? Help before it's too late

  • Buried deep in my pocket, the cellphone rang, competing with the conversations, keyboards click-clacks and scanner chatter in our newsroom.
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    "This is Detective So-and-So. Is this Howard Frank?"
    It wasn't unusual, as a reporter, to get a call from police. Maybe he wanted to ask about a story I wrote.
    "I'm doing an investigation involving Craig So and So. Do you know him?"
    Craig was not only my neighbor but a close friend. We relied on each other for advice, and I was his go-to guy for finding a home for excess beer after his parties.
    Craig was also our family doctor. A brilliant diagnostician with a manner that was low-key and naturally comforting. So much so that all our doc friends sent their families to him.
    The detective asked, was Craig facing any financial problems?
    Any other kind of problems?
    Did you speak with Craig today?
    Well, you were the last person he called from his cellphone.
    Craig didn't call me today.
    The detective read me a phone number.
    Is that your number?
    It was my home phone.
    What's going on, I asked. The detective said he wasn't authorized to say.
    OK, I said to the detective. I've answered some of your questions, and now I'd like you to answer some of mine.
    Is Craig OK?
    Is he hurt?
    Did someone hurt him?
    Did he hurt himself?
    Is he alive?
    I don't know.
    Pause. Where is he?
    They flew him to St. Luke's in Bethlehem.
    The detective's sympathetic, gentle tone betrayed his own agony.
    I jumped into my car to head home. Craig and I spoke two or three times a week. He knew my schedule and always called my cellphone.
    Not today though. Why?
    I tried rationalizing the conversation I just had with the detective, desperately searching for alternative explanations for what I feared.
    There was a reason Craig called me at my home, which had an answering machine. He knew I wouldn't be there.
    The machine sits in a small study next to a chair. I hit the buttons.
    First message, someone else. Second message inconsequential. Then the third began to play.
    "Hi Howard, it's Craig," the message began in his typical upbeat style. His greetings were always the same. I felt a moment of relief.
    It didn't last long.
    "I've decided to end my life."
    He continued to describe, first in that same calm voice, his financial concerns.
    "I made some bad decisions, he said.
    The calm voice melted away.
    In the space of a few sentences, it spiraled from the logical, friendly familiar voice to one of indescribable grief, a deeply tortured soul who had never revealed anything like it — to me or anyone else, I was told over the following days.
    He was filled with guilt for what he was about to do and wanted his family to know he loved them. The message lasted three minutes. The 21st century version of a suicide note.
    The pain for his parents, brother, our group of friends and, of course, his wife was beyond description. Grief unlike any I'd ever seen.
    The experience of losing someone to suicide is inconceivably heartbreaking. It shakes a survivor's comfort that things happen for a reason. It leaves friends wondering why and what we could have done to change the outcome. And to understand that even doctors can become ill.
    I realized what he'd done when I first played that phone message. I had this overwhelming urge to literally reach into that phone, back in time, just a few minutes and get him back on the line. Just one chance to talk to him, be his voice of reason, convince him not to do it.
    Craig's decision wasn't strategic. It wasn't a way to help his family financially through insurance.
    I believe he did it to escape a pain he could no longer tolerate. Imagine a pain that causes a person to overcome the instinct to survive.
    Craig and I had many discussions regarding suicide. I'd been concerned about a friend and Craig offered help. I will forever be haunted by those conversations and why he never mentioned anything to me.
    Someone so sick, as I suspect Craig was, may not have the wherewithal to seek help. That's where we come in. Friends, family, associates, teachers, students — we all interact with others and might see signs of trouble. It could be something as simple as poor grooming or ignoring regular chores.
    Take advantage of community resources, like the National Depression Screening Day in October, when Pocono Medical Center will give free confidential 10 minute to 20 minute screenings with a behavior specialist. Take that friend you might have a concern over.
    Don't wait before a disease becomes a one-way road.
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