Help in Writing "The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin"

Iris Chang's Graveside

I am writing a book entitled The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin. It is a book designed to assist family members and friends who are dealing with the painful aftermath of a loved one's suicide. 

I am placing the FOREWORD to The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin below for you to read. 

I would like to hear from you. Tell me your story of enduring the pain of a loved one who took his or her life. I know this might be the first time you've penned your thoughts, your feelings, and your questions. Tell me of your experience. Let me know what you think I should focus on and what I should avoid. I only ask that you allow me to use what you send if I choose (I'll change your name if you desire). You may leave a comment on this blogpost, or if you'd like, you may email me at wwburleson@gmail.com or istoriaministries@gmail.com. I am not sure when The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin will be finished or published, but I think you could be a resource of help to others. 

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The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin

Searing Questions from Those Left Behind by Suicide

Deep in the archives of Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut, is the diary of an American woman who served as a Christian missionary to China from 1912 to 1940. She lovingly served the Chinese people for twenty-eight years and is credited with saving over 10,000 Chinese women from rape, torture, and certain death by invading Japanese Imperial soldiers in what historians call “The Rape of Nanking.”

Her name was Minnie Vautrin.

 As is the archivists’ custom, a biographical/historical summary precedes the diary to familiarize the reader with the author. Yale wrote an eight-sentence summary of Minnie’s life and placed it in the microform manuscript. It is the last sentence of the biographical summary of Minnie Vautrin that took away my breath when I read it for the first time:

“She committed suicide in 1941 at the age of 54.”

That sentence will evoke little emotion in those who know nothing of Minnie or her work among the Chinese. “She committed suicide” is a phrase that ought to grieve all humanity when we hear it, but sadly, a nameless suicide evokes no sympathy.

But “she committed suicide,” when first heard after Minnie’s suicide, tore a hole in the hearts of the 10,000 women that Minnie personally saved from torture and death during the Rape of Nanking.

I wrote The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin for the person living through the consequences of a loved one's suicide. Your loved one’s life mattered; to you, others, the world at large, and God. It is discouraging when “she committed suicide” or “he committed suicide” becomes a phrase that others use of your loved one, defining your loved one's life by how it ended and not the scope of its influence.

This book is for those who have heard the words “he committed suicide,” or “she committed suicide,” and – at that moment – it felt like you died too.

Any suicide is an awful experience for humankind, but the suicide of the one you love leaves a searing scar that feels as if it will never heal.

I understand how you feel, and I may be able to help you heal.

The questions you have about suicide, including how you go about life absent your loved one and where you can turn for some safe emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing, are questions I will address. They are essential questions, and the answers on paper will take time to process into your life.

Suicide kills far more than the one who dies physically. A suicide by your loved one saps your strength and slaps you with excruciating suffering that numbs the positive emotions you once enjoyed. At times, you may have even wished it was you who had taken your life, not your loved one.

I am not an expert on preventing suicide, but I do know something about coping with suicide.

 
For several years I served as a chaplain for the Tulsa Police Department. I cannot count the number of times dispatch called me to a suicide. The TPD assigned me to notify the victim’s next of kin, but only after going to the scene to answer any questions that loved ones would later ask me after I informed them of the suicide.

Nothing surprised me after working years in the field. The gruesome means of death chosen by a loved one may feel original and horrible to family members, compounded by where the suicide of their loved one took place, how people discovered it, and when and how police informed loved ones. I have learned a principle from my four decades of experience serving as a chaplain and a pastor:

Every suicidal path is unique, but all suicidal pain is ubiquitous.

That means no suicide is the same for anyone, but all loved ones feel the same pain after suicide.

I kept copies of all the suicide notes discovered at the scenes of the suicides I worked. Something is gripping and mesmerizing about one’s final words on paper. I learned a great deal about life through reading and re-reading notes about death. We will talk about some of the lessons I learned from those notes later in this book.

But, as a few of you already know by experience, some suicides will leave no note behind. Those were the hardest for me to work. I had no answers for loved ones who screamed at me, “Why?”

Sometimes families openly wept, and on rare occasions, the victim’s loved ones would attack me physically after I told them the news. I never judged anyone who hit me in the chest or screamed at me to “Get out!” or cursed me and went into a rage. Early on, I learned that emotional outbursts are often unexpected and uncontrolled – particularly when surprised by the devastating and shocking news that someone you love has taken his or her life.

I will be weaving in some narratives of my experiences during my forty years of serving as a police chaplain and pastor, but this book’s focus will be Minnie Vautrin.

Why Minnie? Minnie once said, “Had I ten perfect lives, I would give them all to China.” Minnie’s life wasn’t perfect. Nobody lives a perfect life. But Minnie will provide some profound lessons from her imperfect life for those of us who have struggled with the painful aftermath of a loved one’s suicide.

The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin is not a history book about China, nor do I write to encourage the reader to enter the mission field. This book isn’t even a biography of Minnie Vautrin.

You may have picked this book to read because someone recommended it to you.

Or it could be that the title or subtitle grabbed your attention as you scrolled through a list of books on suicide. I don’t know what made you pick this book, but I understand why you chose it.

You want answers because the one you love is gone, and the aftermath is painful.

Minnie Vautrin served in Nanking, China, the Republic of China’s capital, running a school for young women called Ginling College. She started as a missionary to China in 1912 and served during World War 1 (1914-1918), during the Chinese civil wars between revolutionary communists and the Republic of China (1927-1937), and during the awful start to World War II in the Far East when Imperial Japan invaded China and destroyed the Chinese capital of Nanking (1937-1940).

During the Rape of Nanking, Minnie Vautrin hung an American flag in front of Ginling College and declared her school a “safe zone,” and sheltered 10,000 women and children from death by gunfire, sword, and tortuous rampage. Minnie held her ground when Japanese soldiers aimed rifles at her, slapped her face, and threatened her with death.

Her diary from 1937 to 1940 provides a gripping account of how she managed to save 10,000 Chinese women from Japanese soldiers’ treachery. We’ll examine excerpts from her diary as we look at the psychological and emotional turmoil in Minnie’s life during the Rape of Nanking.

Minnie left China in the spring of 1940 for the United States, intending to return to China after a year-long leave. After speaking to the International Convention during the first week of May 1941, Minnie went to stay with Miss Genevieve Brown, a United Christian Missionary Society secretary in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Unexpectedly, on May 14, 1941, Minnie sealed the small apartment where she was staying and turned on the kitchen stove’s gas jet. She left a note stating that she believed her life “was a failure.”

I didn’t know that Minnie committed suicide until I read Yale Divinity School’s summary of her life in the archives. I learned about Minnie’s heroic efforts to save thousands of Chinese by reading Iris Chang’s 1997 gripping non-fictional book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World II. That book opened to wide acclaim, appearing on the New York Times Bestseller List for ten weeks, selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

Iris Chang devoted one chapter in the Rape of Nanking to Minnie Vautrin and her heroic courage in saving thousands of Chinese lives in Nanking. When I read Chang’s book, I overlooked the short portion about how Minnie died by suicide in America in 1941.

That’s why I caught my breath when I read that last sentence of Yale Divinity School’s short biography of Minnie Vautrin's life. I knew what she'd done; I didn't know how she died.

Chinese author Iris Chang would have been the best author to write The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin. She was a meticulous historical researcher and a woman who deeply admired Minnie Vautrin.

But on Thursday, September 9, 2004, Iris Chang pulled her small car onto an access road off California Highway 17, just outside San Jose, California. As her car sat parked and idling, Iris Chang took a loaded revolver and shot herself in the head. A passerby found her inside the car the following morning.

Iris left a suicide note that said:

“When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day — but by the minute.” 

I hope The Suicide of Minnie Vautrin will help you turn minutes into days, days into months, and months into years – productive years of living, especially in the painful aftermath of your loved one’s suicide.

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