John Trautwein and I haven't met, but we are members of the same club. It's a club neither one of us wants to belong to, which he refers to in his memoir — My Living Will: A Father's Story of Loss & Hope — as "the saddest club on earth." We are parents who have lost a child to suicide.
I don't remember where I heard about Trautwein's book, but it could have been on the Families for Depression Awareness website; it's on their books and memoirs list. Mustering the concentration to read in a state of grief is difficult; reading about suicide is difficult; so it took me a while to get through this book. I bought the Kindle edition months ago, and started it a couple of times. This week we were traveling for spring break, so I had more free time than usual, and therefore was finally able to read it start to finish in a couple of days.
My Living Will is a well-written, heart-rending story. The Trautweins lost their 15-year-old son, Will, suddenly in 2010. There were no signs he was struggling with anything as intense as suicidal ideation. He left behind his bewildered parents, two younger brothers, and a little sister. You can feel their pain from the way Trautwein shares the before and the agonizing after.
John Trautwein clearly is an optimist by nature, as I am. I could relate to the way he was driven to learn all the lessons he could in the wake of Will's death, and how he made specific choices to take action rather than turn his grief inward. He formed a nonprofit, the Will To Live Foundation, "dedicated to preventing teen suicide by improving the lives and the ‘will to live’ of teenagers everywhere through education about mental health and encouraging them to recognize the love and hope that exists in each other." There's much to say about the excellent work the foundation is doing, but for now I will focus on reviewing the book.
Trautwein's writing style is approachable, conversational, as if he is telling you his story aloud. He's a sought-after inspirational speaker, and he sounds like it. A former professional athlete and lifelong team player and coach, he uses a lot of sports analogies. But even though I had no childhood sports team experience and arrived at an athletic lifestyle much later, I could still understand where he was coming from. He also tells the story from a Christian-specific perspective, but again, it's easy to relate to even if you're not religious.
My Living Will is published by WestBow Press, a self-publishing division of Christian publishers Thomas Nelson & Zondervan. It's a shame they didn't offer Mr. Trautwein a little more copy-editing and proofreading support. There are a few more errors than you'd typically find in a traditionally published book, but those small mistakes did not detract much from an otherwise excellent read.
I recommend My Living Will to anyone who has lost a loved one, especially a teenager, to suicide. I highlighted passages throughout the book when things Trautwein said moved, inspired, or just resonated with me. I'll go back and reflect upon those sections as I continue to think about teen suicide and its causes, what we can do to prevent it, how to move forward as a grieving parent, how to look to our communities to get our needs met, and a dozen other topics well worthy of contemplation and action.
And if you're lucky enough not to be a member of the saddest club on earth, there are still a lot of reasons to read My Living Will. You might learn something that will open the door for you to help someone else who, like Will, or Rader, may be struggling in silence. Especially if you have teenagers, take the time to read this book, and then talk with them about it. It could even be the difference between life and death.
