Margaret Thomson - The World Looks Different Now: A Memoir of Suicide, Faith, and Family

Praise for The World Looks Different Now

In her own way of coping with her grief, Margaret uses her investigative reporting skills to try and understand how and why her son took his life. This memoir vividly illustrates the importance of talking about mental health and suicide, and of the need for the military to help its servicemen and women understand that asking for help shows strength and courage. With active duty military suicide rates up over past five years, it is more important than ever that stories like Margarets be heard.

Karen Meadows, Searching for Normal

Margaret Thomson tells in heartbreaking detail the story of her son Kieran, an active-duty soldier ill-suited for the military who died by suicide. Her family represents the struggle that so many go through to find help for a child who struggles. And although she lost her precious son, she battles back to find a path forward in the boldest of ways.

Anne Moss Rogers, author of Diary of a Broken Mind and founder of emotionallynaked.com

I have learned through living as a grieving mother these last twenty years the importance of taking care of myself and taking control of my lifethe only ways I could have survived. Margaret Thomsons raw and intimateand eventually heartwarmingstory shows that she has learned to survive as well. Throughout I felt like Thomson was sitting with me in my living room and talking to me as she told me hers and Kierans story. I recommend The World Looks Different Now to other suicide survivors and to parents who have lost their children by any means.

Madeline Sharples, Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mothers Memoir of Living with Her Sons Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide

THE WORLD

LOOKS

DIFFERENT

NOW

Copyright by Margaret Thomson 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63152-693-0

ISBN: 978-1-63152-694-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902122

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals and places.

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following:

Before

Written by Carl Adamshick is reprinted with the permission of the author.

Parachutes

Written by Andrew Blakemore is reprinted with the permission of the author.

Blood Red Bird

Written by William Callahan

Published by Rough Trade Publishing Ltd.

Excerpt from The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper; Gloria Vanderbilt. Copyright 2016 by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt. Used by permission of Harper Collins Publishers.

Letters and poetry written by Kieran James Thomson reprinted with permission.

Cover design by Julie Metz

For Tim and Matt, and in loving memory of Kieran, and for every parent who has ever lost a child.

I have heard it said that the greatest grief a human being can experience is the loss of a child. This is true.

It doesnt just change you, it demolishes you. The rest of your life is spent on another level.

Gloria Vanderbilt

[What] greater grief

Can mortals knowthan to see their children dead?

Euripides

As seeds blow from the dandelions

Across the fallow field,

They sail upon the autumn breeze

Like parachutes they go,

Whilst floating through the chilly air

To some place far away,

And then shall rest upon the ground

When in the spring theyll grow.

Andrew Blakemore, Parachutes

PART ONE

INTO THE MAELSTROM

PROLOGUE

Why dont you come to bed?

My husband is standing in the doorway, looking bleary-eyed and perplexed.

Im hunched over the laptop, elbows resting on the kitchen table. Its late but I dont care. Im up, the way I so often am, plowing through the internet, a habit my husband finds slightly annoying since hes convinced I would be better off at least trying to get some sleep.

And yet my quest for information is insatiable. Im like my older son in that respect. What did either of us do before the internet?

My husband goes away, shaking his head. Hes a good man, kind and sensible, and I remain deeply indebted to him for helping me raise my son from my first marriage and for always treating him as if he were his own.

I return my attention to the computer screen.

Im watching a video entitled A Day at the MEPS. The soundtrack tells me that MEPS stands for Military Entrance Processing Station, which is where you go when you want to enlist.

Along with the video theres a map showing dozens of these recruitment stations dotted around the country, from Maine to Alaska.

Im watching A Day at the MEPS because I want to understand, if only vicariously, a little of what my son experienced the day he went to the MEPS in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was living at the time, with the goal of enlisting in the United States Army.

Its been more than four years, but still I want to know what that day was like, since my son Kieran isnt here to tell me.

The MEPS. I know the term since Kieran used to use it occasionally, in a casual, almost offhanded way. But then my son was always deliberately casual and offhanded whenever he was talking about anything having to do with either the military or with his decision to enlist.

And now that Ive discovered what the MEPS actually stands for, the word processing in the acronym makes me think of a meat processing plant. Young men and women being processed like meat. I shudder at the thought.

Not surprisingly, A Day at the MEPS shows long lines of mostly young people, the majority of whom are male, being weighed and measured and filling out paperwork. At one point during the video, an unseen narrator issues a stern warning, reminding the applicants that if they dont answer truthfully they might be breaking the law.

The video concludes with rows of recruits standing at attention in a low-ceilinged room with grubby walls and florescent lighting. Raising their right hands, they go down the line, saying their names one after the other before finally repeating in unison the oath that will bind them, at least for a time, to the United States military.

ONE

The phone call that changes everything comes in January 2009.

Im standing in the kitchen, a dish towel in one hand.

Hey, Mom, guess what? I did it! Im in!

Instantly Im aware of a roller-coaster sensation deep in the pit of my stomach. I want to believe that everything is going to be all right, even though I feel certain that joining the army is one of those life-altering decisions that cannot easily be undone.