The missing keys

After the shock loss of her husband from suicide, CHERYL PEARL SUCHER was left grappling to understand the darkness and despair he had felt compelled to keep hidden.

- CHERYL PEARL SUCHER

In the immediate aftermath of my husband's death last year by suicide, I received a heartbreaking note from the husband of a close friend, who told me that he had lost not only his best friend to suicide, but also his brother-in-law and others. In between writing drafts of this essay, I received the tragic news that a young colleague in Manhattan had also taken his own life. If there's to be an end to these sudden shocking losses, there must be a way to overcome the stigma of talking about clinical depression so sufferers can get the help they need. There are signs of hope. In my home country, the United States, recently elected Democratic Senator John Fetterman announced he was being hospitalised for depression after suffering a debilitating stroke. This followed a brutal, mudslinging election campaign. Fetterman is a physical giant, but displayed great bravery by making that very public admission.

I was raised in Judaism to believe that "if you save one life, you save the world entire". And so I am compelled to write about the darkness and despair my husband successfully concealed from me for the 23 years of our life together.

When William John Macready died by suicide in the early morning of March 26 last year, when we were back in New Zealand on a visit, I found in his travel backpack his three passports as a US, British and New Zealand citizen. There was every card to every organisation he ever belonged to, the international driver's licence he received before travelling from New Zealand to London on the one-way plane ticket his parents gave him as a 21st birthday present, endless assorted receipts and invoices, and a key chain with 150 keys.

I had no idea which locks those keys opened, and where to find them. It was as if those keys would unlock the secret to the trauma and despair he had hidden from me.