Opinion | If you give a girl an oatmeal raisin cookie and play John Denver

When someone passes away, all the memories you shared with them come flooding in. When someone you love takes their own life, you start to wonder about all the times you could’ve told them how much they meant to you. Illustration by YANA SAMOYLOVA, Illustrator

I always hated oatmeal raisin cookies. 

True, I’d never tried them, but the idea of something grainy mixed with a sour wrinkly grape disgusted me. So, I made the firm decision that I’d never let something gross like an oatmeal raisin cookie touch my mouth. 

One night, my Uncle Josiah, who wasn’t really my uncle, was over at our house. He told my brother and me he was going to make something for us to try. “It’s my favorite cookie,” he said. “It’s oatmeal raisin.” 

“Ew! Oatmeal is disgusting! That doesn’t belong in a cookie,” I said.

20 minutes later, the warm smells of sweet goodness from the oven traveled over to me. I resisted and failed. I had to try this cookie. 

Much to my surprise, they were quite delicious. I had a few more than one. 

Uncle Josiah always had that effect in my life. As my parents’ friend, a divorcee and the father of a daughter who had long since moved away, he joined us for Thanksgiving, weekend hikes, camping trips and soccer games. In all those moments together, he introduced me to so many things.

He loved playing the guitar, which piqued my brother’s interest. Uncle Josiah then started to come over weekly to teach my brother guitar lessons, have dinner with us and jam to music.

He always took the seat next to mine at the table. As we ate, he’d play his favorite artists on the speaker: The Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, The Carpenters and his idol — John Denver. He talked to me about “The Lord of the Rings” and his newest surround sound system, and he also let me use his Nikon cameras when we went on foliage hikes. He took my family to my first concert for Peter Frampton — where I fell in love with the idea of live music.

One night, he brought over a huge box of magazines. They were all from The New York Times. I curiously flipped through all of them, as he told me that he’d been collecting years’ worth of The Times’ subscriptions and was planning on giving them to me as he finished reading them himself. 

Never mind that I was in elementary school and couldn’t understand big words that had more than four syllables. He encouraged me to read all these stories from people around the country and the world. Maybe one day, he was saying, I could tell stories for other people too. 

As time went on and we got older, our conversations shifted. “Do you think college is worth it?” “How far do you think the universe expands to?” “What do you wish you did more of with your daughter?” We always kept fueling each other with questions, observations of the world and life around us — always over food and John Denver. 

I started seeing the changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Our weekly hangouts ceased for a while, but we occasionally met in the park for a walk, or he’d come watch as I learned to drive for the first time. 

Slowly, it became harder to endure conversations with him. Uncle Josiah was always a cynical yet pragmatic guy. But more and more, he started to criticize himself and everything. I found it to be more frustrating than comforting to talk the way we used to. 

My parents became more involved with supporting him in his mental health journey. It took a while to convince him to see a psychiatrist, but when he did, he was diagnosed with clinical depression and started to take medication. 

It was a really hard year. 

As I finished high school, my mind was occupied with thoughts about college. In August 2021, I moved to Orange to start my freshman year at Chapman. 

It felt like I was escaping everything that was happening at home. Life then filled up with the craziness of freshman year antics. It wasn’t until I checked in with my family over FaceTime that the reality my loved ones were in dialed back. 

My parents would give me brief updates on Uncle Josiah. “He’s doing okay,” “He’s going to be okay” and “He’ll get better,” was the rotation of responses. 

Then, I got a FaceTime call from my family one day in November 2021 after class. I remember feeling funny. Something was wrong.

There’s absolutely no easy way to break the news that someone has died. I don’t recall exactly how my parents told me. 

That night, my dad had found Uncle Josiah in his home shortly after he overdosed and died. 

I felt numb. I looked up and watched students walk by me, unaware of what I had just heard, unaware that my life was now different.

I had always heard about teen suicide prevention. And rightfully so. According to a 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24. This groups’ suicide rates have increased 52.2% within the past 20 years. But in my experience, the conversation rarely addressed adults. 

I think for me and perhaps a lot of people, we automatically assume that older adults have got it all together. But that's simply not the case. Suicidal rates aren’t just increasing in teens and adolescents, but in older adults too. Numbers especially rose during the pandemic. 

“We are now seeing rates of depression of 50% in the general population, because all of a sudden we pulled out their main coping strategies,” suicide prevention specialist Julie Rickard said when talking about the effects quarantine had on people.

Adults aged 35 to 64 years account for 46.8% of all suicides in the United States, and suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for this age group, according to the CDC report.

A WebMD article says that older adults, especially men, “have a much higher death rate than other groups.”

We naturally assume that things get better when we get older. Things do get better, but life isn’t linear. It’s full of divots and slopes and drastic inclines. 

The passing of someone is an interesting occasion.

You start to frantically search your mind for all the memories you have of them. All that really sticks to you are the good moments you had together. Suddenly the times they did you wrong don’t seem as major anymore. The arguments or disagreements you had don’t seem worth holding a grudge over. 

You start to hold more closely the Sunday dinners where they always sat at the far left chair and drank from the same brown mug. You yearn to hear the plucking of a Taylor guitar accompanied by the soft humming of a song. You go back to all the Thanksgivings you spent together, looking at all the photos they took of you admiring the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. You long to remember what the last thing you said to them was, holding on to all your conversations — the ones about oatmeal cookies and the ones about how big the universe is. 

You look at it all differently. Those moments seem more magical now. 

And you start to contemplate if you told them you cherished them enough. 

You start to wonder if you thanked them for being with you for all those moments you had with them because they brought you comfort and peace. You wonder if you ever thanked them for showing you Hotel California because now you know all the words. You wonder if you ever thanked them for calming you when you cried over math homework because you eventually did ace that test. You wonder if you ever thanked them for that huge box of news magazines because you’re now writing for magazines yourself. You wonder if you thanked them enough for lending you cameras that were far too fancy for a fourth grader because it showed you the beauty of capturing nature and life. 

You wonder about all these things, and it suddenly hits you that you can’t turn back time and change anything. You can only move forward and love the people you have in your life now a bit harder, with genuinity, with intention. 

For a while after Uncle Josiah’s passing, I didn’t know how to feel or what I was feeling. It was the first time depression and suicide had struck my personal life, and to be physically away from my family disconnected me from that reality.

Around the one year anniversary of Uncle Josiah’s death, I was listening to John Denver’s discography. I came across a particular song, called “Looking For Space.” 

And I'm looking for space

And to find out who I am

And I'm looking to know and understand

It's a sweet, sweet dream

Sometimes I'm almost there

Sometimes I fly like an eagle

And sometimes I'm deep in despair

All alone in the universe

Sometimes that's how it seems

I get lost in the sadness and the screams

Then I look in the center

Suddenly everything's clear

I find myself in the sunshine and my dreams

It broke me down hard. I found myself plowing through a range of emotions. I was mad at Uncle Josiah for not looking at the center, for not seeing sunshine. I was sad that he felt alone in the universe. I was frustrated that he didn’t see how deeply he was cared for. 

When we try to find ourselves and look for our own space, it can feel isolating because it seems like we’re doing it alone. But we’re not. 

You’re not doing it alone. 

I can’t imagine how many times Uncle Josiah heard that phrase and how quickly it might’ve lost its meaning. But I really wish that I could go back and tell him how much those moments we spent together impacted my life. They were small, candid memories that made my childhood sweet and helped shape me to who I am now. 

I wonder what John Denver saw in his center and his sunshine. Maybe it was playing in large arenas and traveling the world. Or maybe it was filled with small pockets of peace — a slow morning at home, a dinner with friends and laughter-filled conversations. 

The people around you and I have a constant effect in our lives. Their habits, thoughts, values and humor. The communities around you consistently mold your interests, desires, priorities and character. 

You have that same impact on people too. 

You are constantly in a state of having the ability to influence. The ability to love and be loved. You have the ability to tell someone you treasure them, and you are deserving of that same cherishing, too. 

September is considered Suicide Prevention Month, but it is every day. If you want to be more involved with spreading information and resources or be more informed about the gravity of suicide and mental health conditions, click here. 

On July 16, 2022, the three-digit, nationwide phone number ‘988’ became available to connect anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts or those worried about a loved one directly to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988.

You can also chat with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988lifeline.org. 

Tell someone you love them.