Feb 11, 2015 4 min read

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Donnie Indof was a devoted family man.

As a young father, he coached the soccer and baseball teams of his son and daughter. In his later years, he helped organize softball games with his many extended family members and friends. He was proud of his three grandchildren and his many relatives involved in local politics. He helped them in any way he could, often placing signs around his Belle Vernon community.

Indof could talk to strangers for hours, patiently waiting for his wife, Sandy, while she shopped.

An avid hunter, Sandy recalled that in “50 years of hunting, he only got one deer. No one wanted to hunt with him,” she said with a laugh. “The year he got a deer, they had a big party for him. The next day he told me, ‘I’ll never do that again.’ It was a female deer and he worried it could have been pregnant. He was so kind-hearted.”

A hard worker, “he would set five alarms so he wouldn’t be late,” said Sandy. “He was the first one to arrive and the last to leave.”

In July 2009, the plant where he worked closed, leaving Indof without a job.

On Sept. 16, 2009, he ended his life.

“I didn’t realize how bad if affected him,” said Sandy. “My whole world was gone.”

Now, more than five years later, Sandy is living a new kind of life. A different life than she imagined, but one in which she is persevering.

Once a month, Sandy and Donnie’s brother attend a support group, Loved Ones Stolen by Suicide, in Westmoreland County.

Sharing her story with others who have experienced a similar loss has helped Sandy cope.

“Everyone in the group knows each other and each other’s stories,” she said. “This kind of death is so unbelievable.

These people have become family. They know how you feel. I look forward to seeing them.”

This month, Monongahela Valley Hospital will begin a suicide bereavement support group. The free, informal sessions, which will meet the second and fourth Mondays through May, will be led by staff psychologist Sam Lonich, who has extensive experience working with suicide survivors.

Former chairman of the psychology department at California University of Pennsylvania, Lonich has worked one-one-one with patients suffering from depression. He said he recognized a need for support for the many loved ones affected by suicide.

According to the American Association of Suicidology, 40,000 Americans take their lives every year and each suicide intimately affects at least six other people. Based on the number of suicides from 1988 to 2012, it is estimated that there are more than 5 million survivors of suicide in the United States.

“These people have less opportunity to talk about their grief,” said Lonich. “A support group facilitates communication.”

Many times, the survivors of suicide feel a sense of abandonment, responsibility and blame that a survivor of a death by natural doesn’t experience, said Lonich. That can lead to feelings of isolation and shame.

“There is a stigma attached to suicide to not talk about it,” he said.

While someone who has lost a loved one to health problems or aging may feel the support of their community, a survivor of suicide may feel that people are afraid to broach the subject. In this way, attending a support group with other survivors is cathartic.

“The best way to help is to talk about it,” said Sandy. “It just helps to realize these people are feeling the same way you feel.”

Lonich said the group will be “an opportunity to share stories and feelings with fellow survivors without fear of shame.”

For those who feel that they can’t talk to others about their loss, Sandy has some words of advice.

“Seek out anything you can to try to understand. Just try it,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything. Just listen.

There are more people than you realize. Other people have walked your walk.”

For information about Monongahela Valley Hospital’s bereavement support group, call 724-268-1144. For information on LOSS, Mental Health of America of Westmoreland County, call 724-834-6351.