Tabitha Darter Lynn

My mother was not an easy person to know. She kept to herself, confiding in only a handful of people. She told no one of her demons. That is why it was so surprising to get the call in December 2020, "Tab, your mom's gone." 

There was a myriad of reasons she chose to take her life. She was living in a small town in Oklahoma away from her family, she was forced into retirement, she was unhappy with the political environment (the outgoing president was refusing to leave office), Covid cut her off from her outings to church or to visit family out of state, she was lonely, she was diagnosed with medical issues she didn't understand, and the list goes on.

As she saw it, there was no reason to keep living. We found notes on her cell phone, indicating this was her own decision, and it was not a homicide.

As the oldest of her children, I went to her home to retrieve papers, photos, etc. In doing so, I learned more about her than I ever knew! Her death raised so many questions: Why didn't she tell anyone she had an older brother? Why didn't she discuss her illnesses with her family? Why didn't she tell us there was a familial history of mental illness? Did she have a child none of us knew about?

Mom is missed by her four "known" children: Tabitha, Leslie, Jennifer, and Robert, as well as her grandchildren Rick, Samantha, Emma, Tiphany, Leah, Tasha, Tori, and Christian, and her two ex-husbands Sandy and Richard.

For anyone who is contemplating suicide, please don't. While your own problems may be solved by that act, so many other ones are complicated by it.