Lee Fridell, his wife insists with conviction, was "an amazing man." A popular history teacher at Orinda, California's Miramonte High, author, ordained minister, member of the church choir, Fridell was the kind of guy who would visit residents of a convalescent home on the weekend out of the kindness of his heart.
April 28 marked the 38th anniversary of the day Jackie McKinley came home from her job as a teacher at Del Ray Elementary to find her husband had taken his own life.
McKinley, 89, who remarried eight years after Fridell's suicide, wants you to know a couple things. One, Fridell "was not an ordinary man." Two, she was so consumed with guilt that four years after his death, she "ran away" to Thailand for two years, where she wrote a book that served as a catharsis and allowed her to understand it wasn't her fault.
And three, there needs to be more dialogue about suicide.
"I don't believe there's enough said about it," McKinley said from her Danville, Calif., home in Crow Canyon Country Club. "It was embarrassing in 1978 when Lee took his life. If somebody said, 'How did your husband die?' and you tell them, you were both embarrassed."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42,773 Americans died from suicide in 2014. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, for every death, there are 25 attempted suicides.
This anniversary of Fridell's death came at a meaningful time for his family. His son, Mark, turned 60 on May 21. That same day, Walk Out of the Darkness, an event sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, was held in San Francisco. Mark Fridell, his wife, Barbara, and their son, Luke, participated in the walk.
"It's about going into the darkness but then being able to come out," said Fridell, whose wife had been asking him how he wanted to celebrate his milestone birthday. "When I heard about it on the radio, I thought, 'That's what I want to do.' I read more about the organization and what they do, the money they raise goes toward research, education, advocacy and support for families of suicide."
The walk covered around 17 miles, with about 3,000 participants. He and his wife raised more than $3000 in pledges.
McKinley had no such coping mechanism in 1978, though she smiles when she recalls letters she received from her fourth grade class and some of her husband's former students - letters she has saved.
"What happened was I became angry after four years," she said. "I was filled with guilt. I never had talked to anyone who was that close to a person who took their life. Parents especially and mates, the guilt that you feel, you can't get rid of it."
She applied to, and was accepted by, a program called Volunteer in Mission. She went to Thailand and worked in a girls school with 4,800 students. She wrote every Sunday. The result was a book, "West to the Dawn."
"It tells how I reconciled his suicide and was able to live with it," she said.
"This is a man who was so great, and people didn't know he was hurting. He didn't let people know. He always had a smile on his face. I knew. I'm the one who knew."
(c)2016 East Bay Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)
Visit the East Bay Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) at www.eastbaytimes.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
About the Author
