A soldier has died. There’s nothing particularly dramatic in this news. In a world of perpetual war, soldiers die every day. We associate death with soldiers. The details of the death need not be emphasized here, but the cause of death was, sadly, representative of the way far too many members of the US military die. Since 2010, the United States has lost more troops to suicide than combat. And the statistics, which show a suicide rate significantly higher for soldiers than for the civilian population, don’t include combat veterans who die by suicide after completing their military service.

On the one hand, it isn’t a new problem. The first suicide death by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge - the place of the most suicide deaths in the world - was a veteran of World War I.

But this blog post isn’t about statistics. It is about the very real pain and grief and overwhelming tragedy that has suddenly crashed down upon a family. Every soldier that dies - every person that dies - leaves behind grief and lives that can never go back to the way things were.

We live our family stories, and the dominant story of this family has been of how one can start over. Life offers new beginnings and sometimes you have to stop going in one direction and head out in a new way. In this particular family, the life of ranching in South Dakota was leading towards a pretty obvious end. Year after year the revenues weren’t matching the expenses. Ranchers don’t control the markets. They don’t control the costs of the supplies that are needed. The family was facing a very uncertain future, but it was clear that even with one full-time off-ranch income, there wasn’t enough money coming in to support a growing family. There were children who would need to be educated. There was the future to consider. Somehow they found the strength and the resources to sell out, pick up stakes and move from the prairies of South Dakota to St. Louis for three years of study for the father. The family lived a pretty simple lifestyle in a cramped apartment for three years. But they pulled together and they made it work. Father graduated and soon they were able to move back to South Dakota for his ordination and installation as pastor of a congregation. A new income. A new way of life. A fresh start.

It is a story that the father likes to tell. It is a story that almost everyone who knows the family has heard.

But somehow this family story didn’t become the story of the next generation. Or the story got passed down with conditions: “You can change your life, if . . .” “You can start over, if . . .”

I don’t know. We never know with a suicide. What went through his head in the final day? What was he thinking at his final moments? That information is forever lost and we will never know.

What I do know is that there are a lot of broken hearts.

I keep trying to compose a sympathy card for his parents and I keep not finding the words.

I have such fond memories of a sensitive, kind, caring and creative young man. I’ve known him since he was an adolescent. I thought of him as one of our “success” stories - a kid who grew up in the church and attended camp every summer, who made friends easily, who participated in campus ministries and was active in community theatre - a guy who could balance his artistic temperament and his call to serve - an army bridge crew member who interned at Black Hills Playhouse.

Suicide is always a shock to those who are closest to the victim. If we could see the signs, we would intervene. If we could prevent it, we would. But it isn’t that easy. Being sad and being depressed are not the same thing. A normal dose of guilt helps a person grow and be more fully human. Unreasonable and irrational guilt motivate a person to punish themselves. We look for medical causes and medical solutions for the aches and pains that arise in the lives of our loved ones. We often don’t know how to respond to pains that are not physical. Creative people often seem a bit out of focus to those who are looking in from the outside. They tend to stay up late at night and burn the candle at both ends, exhaustion is expected because their way of living exhausts us. A change in a sleeping pattern is hard to detect because their “normal” sleeping pattern is dissimilar to others.

And our society has a stigma attached to suicide. It is a difficult topic to bring up in polite company. We don’t talk about suicide and we appear not willing to talk about suicide. So people with suicidal thoughts tend to keep them to themselves, which does not lead to effective treatment of the underlying disorders and prevention of the suicide.

Death by suicide is the result of an illness that either was not treated or for which the treatment was insufficient. With cancer, at least we can put a name to the illness. With mental disorders, we often whisper behind the backs of others. With heart disease we can raise funds for research to treat future cases. You won’t find the clerks at the grocery store asking you to “round up” for research into the treatment of mental illness.

And the tragedy continues. And the pain continues. And the grief continues.

For a few years I would bring my trumpet with me to camp and each evening I would play taps to signal “lights out.” In the morning I’d play reveille to wake the campers. There was one camper who always wanted to play taps with me, so we would do just that. Most evenings he’d come out on the porch of his cabin in a t-shirt and boxers and play taps with me.

Now I have to play taps alone. And I’ll never play it again without thinking of a brilliant young man and what this world has lost.

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