It feels easy to assign blame in the wake of Tyler Clementi’s suicide.  Tyler jumped to his death days after being spied on by his college roommate while kissing another man.  His roommate, Dharun Ravi, left an electronic trail of outrageous messages that instantly turned the public against him.  Long before the jury announced its decision on charges ranging from invasion of privacy to bias intimidation, the public’s verdict was clear:  Dharun was to blame for Tyler’s death.  Even I blamed him, and I know better.

Assigning blame in the aftermath of a suicide usually plays out in private—more than 37,000 times a year in the United States.  Typically no formal charges are filed, but every surviving parent, spouse, friend, and colleague becomes accuser and accused, judge and jury.  At least that’s how it worked after my father’s 1970 suicide.  Everyone pointed fingers at everyone, in part to displace whatever misplaced guilt they may have felt about failing to keep Dad alive.  Not surprisingly, my mom was the primary target.  She was the one who asked Dad to move out.  In the months that followed, my dad, who had a history of mental illness, grew increasingly despondent and killed himself.  However unfair, connecting Mom’s actions to Dad’s made sense.

Anyone who has lived through the suicide of a loved one knows what I’m talking about.  It’s perfectly natural in the wake of such shocking and poorly understood deaths to want to lay blame as we search for answers.  We plague ourselves with the “whys” and “what ifs” and look around us—and at ourselves—to make sense of what happened and decide who was responsible.

With Dharun and Tyler, that impulse proved irresistible yet again.  We all know that Dharun didn’t physically push Tyler to his death, but it made sense to blame him because we assumed his reckless and callous actions were more than just potential triggers.  It looked as though his actions made the events that followed inevitable.

It’s not nearly so simple.  We don’t know why Tyler took his life, just as I’ll never really know why my dad ended his.  We don’t even know whether Tyler felt bullied, intimidated, or even humiliated.  What we do know is that bullying, intimidation, and humiliation don’t automatically lead to suicide.  If they did, few of us would have survived adolescence.

At best, we can say that Dharun’s spying and subsequent Twitter messages triggered Tyler’s suicide, which is different from causing his suicide.  We know from research that more than 90 percent of people who take their own lives have some kind of underlying mental disorder at the time of their deaths, most commonly depression.  But with Tyler we just don’t know what factors came to bear that caused him to end his life.

Of course Dharun Ravi is responsible for what he actually did and what he did, as far as we can tell, inadvertently triggered an extreme response that no one could have imagined.  But no matter how reprehensible Dharun’s actions were, he’s not to blame for causing Tyler’s suicide. Dharun didn’t kill Tyler, just as my mom didn’t kill my dad.  Dad and Tyler killed themselves.

Absent Tyler’s suicide, Dharun might be facing suspension from school for his obnoxious prank rather than ten years behind bars following a trial that’s been billed as a test case on “bullying over homosexuality in the digital age.”  But if we’re honest with ourselves, Dharun’s trial was about assigning blame.  More importantly, it was a test of our ability to navigate an exceedingly complex mix of issues about which we’re woefully ignorant, from sexuality and the responsible use of new technologies to bullying and suicide.  In our rush to judgment, we’ve failed that test miserably.  We’ve turned Tyler Clementi into a two-dimensional symbol of anti-gay bullying and Dharun Ravi into a scapegoat.  This is a case that screams out for compassion and understanding.  Instead, we’ve laid blame for a tragic act none of us fully understands on the head of a foolish, immature young man.

How did you come to choose the topics of depression and suicide for your book?

They chose me. I’d wanted to write a book on this topic for years. Especially, I wanted to write about someone who comes back from a suicide attempt. There are many good books out there that end at the life-or-death moment, or start with a suicide and explore what led up to it. I wanted to explore the process of putting a life back together, of dealing with the inevitable ups and downs.

I was working on an idea for a verse novel, and I had this image of a boy standing under a waterfall. I wrote the first draft of the early scenes with no clear idea of who he was or what the waterfall meant to him. And then I realized that he was going to tell the story I had wanted to tell for so long. He was the character who was coming back from the brink.

Your two primary characters seem so real.  How did you research them?

Most of my characters start talking to me almost of their own volition. I think my stories and characters form in my subconscious, and then move up to my conscious mind.

I’ve been to places like the ones my characters describe: the glass house, the quarry, the waterfall, the graveyard, etc. Ryan and Nicki suit each other well; they don’t let each other get away with their usual defense mechanisms. They encourage each other to take the risks that bring people closer together, most of all the risk of honesty.

Does any of what you write about come out of personal experience?

It seems to me that suicide, depression and mental illness have touched so many people’s lives, that we all know people who have been through such experiences. It is, sadly, not that uncommon. I didn’t base Try Not to Breathe on any one person’s true story, but I used a variety of sources—some more personal than others—to make Ryan’s experiences as authentic as I could.

For a book that deals with life and death issues, I came away from it feeling hopeful.  Was that your intention?

Absolutely. It should not be assumed that characters always speak for their writers. But in this case, the insights Ryan has at the end of the book—about change being continual, about the rewards of living—are mine also.

What do you like about writing for young adults?

Young adulthood is an intense time of life, where you have a lot of decisions to make about the future, and you’re confronted by a lot of changes. Also, there are so many firsts: first job, first boyfriend or girlfriend, first time driving, etc. It’s a very rich, interesting time to write about.

And I remember the books I read as a child and a teen with an extraordinary vividness; that’s when books first became important to me. There are teens out there now who review books and blog about them with an enthusiasm that’s wonderful to see.

I think parents could learn a lot about the inner lives of their teenagers by reading your book.  Do you agree or disagree?  Why?

I think adults can learn more about young adulthood in general by reading the books, and listening to the music, and watching the shows, that their children are interested in. And I think that talking about a book, even if the book doesn’t reflect your own actual life, can bring people together.

Is there a single message that you’d like readers to take away from your book?  Or is that a stupid question?

Writers often use a relevant phrase when they sign their books. For this book, I often use, “Live with hope.” That gives you a clue, I think. But mostly, I try to write something that feels true and hope that readers will connect with it, that they will find something meaningful for themselves.

What kind of response have you had to your book?  Have you heard from teens who have dealt with depression and suicide?

I appreciate it more than I can say when people take the time to write me about my books. I’ve had some very warm responses to Try Not to Breathe. Some people just like the story or the characters. I’ve heard from a few whose lives have been directly and personally touched by suicide or mental illness and, as you can imagine, those messages are very powerful.

Anything I haven’t asked that you’d like to comment on?

I urge anyone who is dealing with depression or thoughts of suicide to seek help immediately. One resource is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

I was reminded of this moment yesterday while reading a New Yorker article about the suicide of gay college student Tyler Clementi and his roommate, Dharun Ravi, who is soon to go on trial for charges relating to his activities that many have claimed pushed Tyler to his death.  The article is so exquisitely reported by Ian Parker that there’s no need to recount the story here, but the wish of those left behind to assign blame figures prominently.  And how could it not?

In the aftermath of almost every suicide, my dad’s included, we inevitably look for reasons why our loved one chose—however irrationally—to die.  In my dad’s case, my mom was a natural blame target because she asked him to move out shortly after he was discharged from a psychiatric hospital.  From where I sit now, I can see why she chose that moment.  For my dad’s family, it was easy to link my mom’s actions almost directly to his death.  At a vulnerable moment she threw him out on the street.  Two years later, living alone in a rooming house, pining for his three young children, depressed and bereft, longing for the life that was no longer his, he took an overdose and left his loved ones bereft, depressed, and in search of someone to blame.

I’m guilty of assigning blame, too.  I blamed the Veterans Administration (now called the Department of Veteran Affairs) for not doing a better job of treating my dad’s mental illness.  I blamed my uncle for not letting my dad continue to live with his family after my mother asked him to leave.  I blamed my grandparents for nothing specific, but surely they failed to do something they should have done or my dad wouldn’t be dead.  And when I allowed myself, I blamed my mother, but she was all that stood between me and the orphanage, so I rarely included her on the list.

The one person I never thought to blame, at least until I’d had years of therapy, was my dad.  He had suffered.  He was dead.  How could I blame him?  But he did it.  Not my mother.  Not my uncle.  Not my grandparents.  Not the VA.  And not his friends, including Howard, who knew that my father was contemplating suicide.

Looking back, it’s impossible not to think that everyone could have done a better job of saving my dad.  So in that regard, everyone was to blame.  But none of them forced my dad to take his life.  Just as no one forced Tyler Clementi to take his.  Perhaps Tyler felt humiliated by the insensitive and foolish actions of his roommate, Dharun Ravi, but it was Tyler who went to the George Washington Bridge with the intention of ending his life.  No one but Tyler knows how Dharun may or may not have contributed to his decision to die, but Dharun is not to blame.

The rush to assign blame in the aftermath of my dad’s suicide was perhaps more damaging than my dad’s death.  It blew apart family ties and old friendships and left me even more isolated in the months and years that followed than if my dad had died a natural death.  I’ve come to think that the suicide blame game is one where we all lose.

Bobby DeMuro

Last week, I interviewed Eric Marcus for my radio show called “The 7-Day Challenge.”  Every week on the show, I explore a public health issue, and challenge listeners to something they can do over the next seven days to improve their health.  As you might guess, we cover a variety of public health problems – obesity, emergency preparedness, food policy, infectious diseases and bioterrorism, and everything else under the sun.  Or so I thought.

Back in September, I was on the CDC website and found the schedule of national health observances – Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, National Hand Washing Awareness Week, and so forth. One of the observances was International Survivors of Suicide Day, sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Intrigued, I contacted them, and they put me in touch with Eric.

It was there that I got “schooled.” See, I like to think (hope?) that I know a lot about public health. I’m no expert, but I’m hungry to learn.  I read a lot, and I hope I know more next week than I did this week.

So with that in mind, I began to realize my woeful ignorance on a major public health issue – suicide. I read Eric’s book, perused the AFSP website, and practically lived on the National Institute of Mental Health website trying to develop a body of knowledge that had been embarrassingly skipped in my previous learning.

Had it not been for Eric, AFSP, and the interview (which you can hear beginning November 18), I would have continued my ignorance about suicide.

I could list statistics – the tenth leading cause of death in America, 90% of suicides involve a mental or substance abuse disorder, the third leading cause of death for people between 15 and 24 – but knowing you read Eric’s work, the numbers aren’t new to you.

The story, from my vantage point, is awareness.

This past Saturday, we celebrated International Survivors of Suicide Day. I use the word “celebrate” a little uncomfortably, but when I think about it, it is a celebration in a way.

See, I can celebrate that I now know (and am sensitive about) a major mental and public health issue. I am now, in some minor way, an advocate for suicide prevention, AFSP, and mental health awareness.

I’m not on Eric’s level, and I’m not saying what I’m doing is anything amazing – it’s not. But it is significant, and it’s awareness. Consider me a convert, if you will, from ignorance to understanding. From apathy to knowledge. And that is something worth celebrating.

So now that you’ve observed International Survivors of Suicide Day, take a minute to introduce the issue to somebody previously unaffected by suicide. Involve us in your advocacy. We may be more open than you think – and we are surely sensitive to your stories and experiences.

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WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?

What to do?, he thought, as he surveyed the ten-foot tall tree-like stems of the privet hedge lined up like a row of Queen Elizabeth’s foot guards who had stuck their fingers in electric sockets—bare decades-old spindly trunks, rigid against the ivy-covered trellis, each ending at the wall’s top in a blunt woody knob.  And spouting from the knobs sprays of young twigs, fat with buds on this late-winter day.

Leaning on the aluminum pruning pole he takes a deep breath, testing the air for signs of spring, but finding only a damp, musty chill.  This is going to be painful, he thinks, imagining how many minutes, how many hours, he’ll need to reach up and hold up this razor-sharp tool designed for precision cutting that he’d wielded like an ax last winter.  He has only himself to blame for the aching joints he’ll take to bed with him tonight.  And so he begins, lifting the pole and carefully directing it’s scissors-like tip toward its prey.  Snip, snip, snip, and snip again.  From one little branch to the next, he savors the satisfying snap as he compresses the ice-cold handle and the blades slice through the young wood.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees something fall from the parapet of the apartment building across the yard.  First one, then another.  Pigeons, throwing themselves into the still air, their breasts catching the morning light as they plummet to the earth, beating their wings only at the last moment to save themselves from almost certain death.

Is that what she did?  Fling herself from the ten-story building?  Or did she step off, as if descending a flight of stairs.  Does it matter?  But he wonders.  Did she walk back and forth, stopping occasionally to examine the parapet’s edge with the tip of her white sneaker?  Did she look down to see where she’d land?  Did she care?  Did the sun illuminate her blond curls then like it does now the silvery feathers of the dive-bombing birds?  How did she do it?  With outstretched arms and the grace of an Olympic diver?  Or did she tumble from the sky like a bundle of rags?  Ten.  Nine.  Eight.  Seven.  Six.  Five.  Four.  Three.  Two.  One.  Did she watch?  Were her eyes open on the way down?  What was the last thing she saw?  Was it the clear blue sky as she lay broken on the ground, her lungs empty of air, her body pressed into the earth?

So this is where he came on that winter afternoon when he learned of her leap from life, to his blue-stone paved backyard, to the towering, overgrown privet that he assaulted with a fierceness that drove him from limb to limb hacking through their dense, leafy crowns until only stranded stumps remained.  Breathless, he stood in a knee-deep pile of branches and leaves, arms and shoulders aching, wondering what he’d done, hoping the neighbors hadn’t noticed that a madman had just murdered his innocent hedge.

But you can’t kill a privet, which he knew even then, as he gathered the evidence of his crime in black plastic bags and hauled them out to the curb.  Come spring, from the woody stumps grew the tender, wild sprays of arrow-straight branches that now occupied his attention.  Snip, snip, snip, from one to the next.  And he imagined to himself that by late summer, the grievous wounds he’d inflicted on a bitter November day would disappear behind a dense screen of new growth and maybe then he could look at the privets without thinking of death.

It’s no secret (as demonstrated in numerous studies in the U.S. and abroad) that gay men and lesbians suffer from higher rates of mental disorders, substance abuse, and suicide attempts than their heterosexual counterparts.  Given these numbers, it seems clear that gay people would benefit even more than the general population from access to affordable mental health care.  Unfortunately, gay people are almost twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to lack health insurance (22% vs. 10%).  There are multiple reasons for this disparity, but a 2010 study of same-sex couples in California suggests that one significant reason for this disparity is the difficulty same-sex couples have in securing employee-based health insurance for the dependent partner.

Here’s an example:  If my partner is employed by a company in Georgia, where same-sex marriage is not permitted, there’s no guarantee that the company he works for will provide health insurance for same-sex dependents (as opposed to legally married dependents who would automatically be covered).  Even if my partner’s company extended health insurance benefits to same-sex partners, my partner would have to pay state and federal taxes on that benefit because we’re not recognized by either the state of Georgia or the federal government as a married couple.  That extra cost can easily be the barrier that makes health insurance unaffordable.  (If you’re a legally married couple, those dependent health benefits are not taxed.)

Because of DOMA, getting married in a state where same-sex marriage is permitted in order to secure dependent health benefits in a state where it’s not is no solution.  For example, even if my partner and I were married in New York—where same-sex marriage became legal yesterday—Georgia is permitted by law to ignore a legal marriage license from another state if the marrying partners are of the same sex.

Without health insurance, people with mental disorders inevitably delay seeking treatment or get no treatment at all.  And people who don’t receive treatment are at a greater risk of suicide.  So it’s a simple formula:  No insurance = no treatment for mental disorders = more suicides.  DOMA repeal = more people insured = treatment for mental disorders = fewer suicides.  Marriage equality is not about weddings.  It’s a matter of life and death.

•  The content and sources (see below) for this blog post are drawn from:  Haas, A.P. et al.  (2011).  Suicide and suicide risk in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations:  review and recommendations.  Journal of Homosexuality.  58(1):10-51.

1. Harris Interactive News Room, Nearly one in four gay and lesbian adults lack health insurance. May 19, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NEWS/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1307.
2. Ponce, N. A., Cochran, S. D., Pizer, J. C., & Mays, V. M. (2010). The effects of unequal access to health insurance for same-sex couples in California. Health Affairs, 29(8), 1539–1548.
3. Bostwick, W. B., Boyd, C. J., Hughes, T. L., & McCabe, S. E. (2010). Dimensions of sexual orientation and the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 100(3), 468–475.
4. Cochran, S. D., Mays, V. M., & Sullivan, J. G. (2003). Prevalence of mental disorders, psychological distress and mental health services use among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in the United States. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71(1), 53–61.
5. Cochran, S. D., Mays, V. M., Alegria, M., Ortega, A. N., & Takeuchi, D. (2007). Mental health and substance use disorders in Latino and Asian-American lesbian, gay and bisexual adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(5), 785–794.
6. Conron, K. J., Mimiaga, M. J., & Landers, S. J. (2010). A population-based study of sexual orientation identity and gender differences in adult health. American Journal of Public Health, 100(10), 1953–1960.
7. Gilman, S. E., Cochran, S. D., Mays, V. M., Hughes, M., Ostrow, D., & Kessler, R. C. (2001). Risk of psychiatric disorders among individuals reporting same-sex sexual partners in the National Comorbidity Survey. American Journal of Public Health, 91(6), 933–939.
8. McCabe, S. E., Hughes, T. L., Bostwick, W. B., West, B. T., & Boyd, C. J. (2009).  Sexual orientation, substance use behaviors and substance dependence in the United States. Addiction, 104(8), 1333–1345.
9. King, M., Semlyen, J., Tai, S. S., Killaspy, H., Osborn, D., Popelyuk, D., et al. (2008, August 18). A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. BMC Psychiatry, 8: 70. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2533652/
10. McLaughlin, C. G. (2004). Delays in treatment for mental disorders and health insurance coverage. Health Services Research, 39(2), 221–224.
11. Wang, P. S., Berglund, P. A., Olfson, M., & Kessler, R. C. (2004). Delays in initial treatment contact after first onset of a mental disorder. Health Services Research, 39(2), 393–415.

When I asked Chris and Michael about the song’s inspiration, Chris explained that his father drowned while saving him from a riptide.  Chris who is 32, was nine at the time and his dad was 39.  Given my own loss (of my dad when he was 44 and I was twelve), “Lost in the Waves” resonates in a profound way.

I first met Chris (a lyricist) and Michael (a composer) when they asked to interview me about my book, Why Suicide? Chris and Michael had been commissioned by the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to write a musical inspired by an article in the New Yorker magazine about the 2000^th person to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.  Not exactly typical Broadway material and very treacherous territory for these two young men to explore, especially since they had no personal experience with suicide.

When my partner and I went to the show’s opening two summers ago we went with very low expectations, but were totally blown away by the show’s heart, sensitivity, humor, drama, and music.  (Now that I know about Chris’s dad, I understand why he and Michael were the perfect team to do this work.)  The show is still in development (performed most recently at Milikin University in Illinois), but I’m hoping it finds it’s way to Broadway one day soon.  You can learn more about Chris and Michael’s shows and music on their web site.

Survivor Day was emotional, painful at times, but it was surprisingly comforting to be around people who belonged to the same awful club.  So it’s with a strange sense of comfort that I read through a newly published list of well-known folks (celebrities and otherwise) who have lived through the suicide of a loved one.  (And by “strange,” I only mean that I find it a bit baffling that I should be comforted by the knowledge that even famous people have suffered as I have.)  The list reminds me once again that the experience of surviving a suicide isn’t unique after all, despite how uniquely tainted I felt in the first few decades after my father’s death.

The survivor list, which follows below, was prepared by Dan Fields for the Grief Support Services program of Samaritans, Inc., in Boston.

250+ NOTABLE SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE LOSS (as of August 2011)

Lost a Child

President John Quincy Adams (son)

Roger Angell, writer (daughter)

Walter Annenberg, publisher, philanthropist, and diplomat (son)

James Arness, actor (daughter)

Burt Bacharach, singer/songwriter, and Angie Dickinson, actress (daughter)

Ambrose Bierce, writer (son)

Georges Bizet, composer (son)

Marlon Brando, actor (daughter)

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway (son)

Ralph Bunche, winner of Nobel Peace Prize (daughter; also lost an uncle)

Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (daughter)

George Chuvalo, boxer (son; also lost wife)

Judy Collins, singer/songwriter (son)

Tony Dungy, football coach (son)

Mary Engelbreit, artist (son)

Robert Frank, photographer (son)

Robert Frost, poet (son)

Major General Mark Graham (son)

Kenneth Grahame, children’s author (son)

Fritz Haber, winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry (son; also lost wife)

Eric Hipple, NFL quarterback (son)

L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology founder (son)

Robert Hughes, art critic (son)

Brit Hume, TV journalist (son)

President Andrew Johnson (son)

Jennifer Jones, actress (daughter)

Roger Kahn, sports writer (son)

Walter Koenig, actor (son)

Art Linkletter, radio/TV personality (daughter)

Bernard Madoff, disgraced financier (son)

Thomas Mann, writer (two sons; also lost two sisters)

Herman Melville, writer (son)

Willie Nelson, singer/songwriter (son)

Carroll O’Connor, actor (son)

Eugene O’Neill, writer (son)

Marie Osmond, singer and actress (son)

Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran (daughter and son)

Gregory Peck, actor (son)

James Pike, Episcopal bishop (son)

Luke Richardson, hockey player (daughter)

Oral Roberts, televangelist (son)

First Lady Edith Roosevelt (son)

Pierre Salinger, journalist and White House press secretary (son)

Georges Simenon, writer (daughter)

Gordon Smith, U.S. senator (son)

Rosalie Sorrels, singer/songwriter (son)

Danielle Steel, romance novelist (son)

Bart Stupak, U.S. congressman (son)

Arnold Toynbee, historian (son)

Gloria Vanderbilt, fashion designer (son)

Walter Winchell, newspaper and radio commentator (son)

Lost a Parent

Kathy Acker, writer (mother)

Conrad Aiken, writer (father)

Buzz Aldrin, astronaut (mother; also lost grandfather)

Hal Ashby, filmmaker (father)

David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama (father)

Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer (mother)

Orson Bean, actor (mother)

Richard Belzer, actor (father)

Larry Bird, basketball player and executive (father)

Bill Blass, fashion designer (father)

Drew Brees, NFL quarterback (mother)

Sarah Brightman, singer/songwriter and actress (father)

Frederick Buechner, writer and theologian (father)

Truman Capote, writer (mother)

Jean Cocteau, writer and filmmaker (father)

Geoff Courtnall, hockey player (father)

Isak Dinesen, writer (father)

Perry Farrell, singer/songwriter (mother)

Karen Finley, performance artist (father)

Janet Flanner, writer (father)

Nick Flynn, writer (mother)

Jane Fonda, actress (mother)

Peter Fonda, actor (mother)

Ernest and Julio Gallo, winemakers (father)

Kaye Gibbons, novelist (mother)

Gail Godwin, writer (father)

Carol Greider, winner of Nobel Prize in Medicine (mother)

Thom Gunn, poet (mother)

Philip Guston, painter (father)

Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee magazine and

The Old Farmer’s Almanac (father)

Mariette Hartley, actress (father)

Amy Hempel, writer (mother)

Eva Hesse, sculptor (mother)

Christopher Hitchens, writer (mother)

Ben Hogan, golfer (father)

Frieda Hughes, writer and artist (mother: Sylvia Plath; also lost brother)

James Jones, novelist (father)

Randi Kaye, CNN anchor (father)

Franz Kline, painter (father)

Stanley Kunitz, poet (father)

Janet Leigh, actress (father)

Joshua Logan, stage and movie director (father)

René Magritte, painter (mother)

André Malraux, writer and statesman (father)

Archie Manning, NFL quarterback (father)

Charlie Manuel, baseball manager (father)

Pete Maravich, basketball player (mother)

Chester Marcol, NFL kicker (father)

Carl Mayer, screenwriter (father)

Anne Meara, actress and comedian (mother)

Story Musgrave, astronaut (both parents; also lost a brother)

Martina Navratilova, tennis player (father)

Don Nickles, U.S. senator (father)

George Oppen, poet (mother)

Amos Oz, writer (mother)

Ann Packer, writer (father)

Gram Parsons, singer/songwriter (father)

Wolfgang Pauli, winner of Nobel Prize in physics (mother)

Walker Percy, writer (father; also lost a grandfather)

Marjorie Merriweather Post, founder of General Foods (father: C.W. Post)

Freddie Prinze, Jr., actor (father)

Wilhelm Reich, psychiatrist (mother)

Harry Reid, U.S. senator (father)

Richard Rhodes, writer (mother)

Melissa Rivers, TV personality (father)

Karl Rove, political consultant (mother)

Richard Serra, sculptor (mother)

Linda Gray Sexton, writer (mother: Anne Sexton)

Michelle Ray Smith, actress (father)

W. Eugene Smith, photographer (father)

Phil Spector, music producer (father)

Gerry Spence, trial lawyer (mother)

Art Spiegelman, cartoonist (mother)

Wallace Stegner, writer (father)

Barry Switzer, football coach (mother)

Christopher Titus, comedian (mother)

First Lady Bess Truman (father)

Ted Turner, media tycoon (father)

Kurt Vonnegut, writer (mother)

Raoul Wallenberg, humanitarian (mother and stepfather)

Jake Weber, actor (mother)

Paula White, Christian author and pastor (father)

Marianne Wiggins, writer (father)

First Lady Ellen Wilson (father)

Lost a Sibling

Clay Aiken, singer/songwriter (sister)

Robert Antonioni, Massachusetts State Senator (brother)

apl.de.ap, member of The Black Eyed Peas (brother)

Ba Jin, writer (brother)

Angela Perez Baraquio, Miss America 2001 (brother)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (brother)

Ivy Compton-Burnett, writer (two sisters)

Pat Conroy, writer (brother)

Anderson Cooper, CNN anchor (brother)

Cameron Crowe, screenwriter and filmmaker (sister)

Robert Crumb, cartoonist (brother)

Paul Dirac, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics (brother)

Dominick Dunne, writer (brother)

Dave Eggers, writer (sister)

Mia Farrow, actress and humanitarian (brother)

Suzy Favor-Hamilton, Olympic runner (brother)

Zelda Fitzgerald, writer (brother; also lost a grandmother)

Julia Glass, novelist (sister)

Nan Goldin, photographer (sister)

John Gray, relationship counselor (brother)

Mariel Hemingway, actress and writer (sister: Margaux Hemingway;

also lost a grandfather: Ernest Hemingway)

Katharine Hepburn, actress (brother; also lost a grandfather)

John Hiatt, singer/songwriter (brother)

Jeffrey Hollender, cofounder of Seventh Generation (brother)

Aldous Huxley, writer (brother)

Sam Kinison, comedian (brother)

August Kleinzahler, poet (brother)

Akira Kurosawa, filmmaker (brother)

Guy Maddin, filmmaker (brother)

Mairead Maguire, winner of Nobel Peace Prize (sister)

Gustav Mahler, composer (brother)

Terrence Malick, filmmaker (brother)

Michel Martin, NPR host (brother)

Mark Matousek, writer (sister)

Mary Tyler Moore, actress (sister)

Nichelle Nichols, actress (brother)

Michael Palin, comedian, actor, and writer (sister)

Charlotte Rampling, actress (sister)

Robert Schumann, composer (sister)

Cindy Sherman, photographer (brother)

Joe Strummer, singer/songwriter (brother)

Patrick Swayze, actor (sister)

John Vanbiesbrouck, hockey goalie (brother)

Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (three brothers)

Lost a Spouse

Henry Adams, writer (wife)

Gary Allan, singer/songwriter (wife)

Stephen Ambrose, historian (wife)

Catherine Bach, actress (husband)

Jackson Browne, singer/songwriter (wife)

John Carlos, Olympic runner (wife)

Darryl Dawkins, basketball player (estranged wife)

Louise Erdrich, novelist (estranged husband)

W. Mark Felt, Watergate’s “Deep Throat” (wife)

M.F.K. Fisher, food writer (husband)

Henry Fonda, actor (wife)

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), children’s author (wife)

Katharine Graham, Washington Post publisher (husband)

Jean Harlow, actress (husband)

Gayl Jones, writer (husband)

Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany (wife)

Timothy Leary, psychologist (wife)

Courtney Love, singer/songwriter (husband: Kurt Cobain)

Carson McCullers, writer (husband)

Jay Novacek, NFL tight end (wife)

Lafitt Pincay, jockey (wife)

Helen Steiner Rice, poet (husband)

Joan Rivers, comedian (husband)

Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking (husband)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and artist (wife)

Jessica Savitch, TV journalist (husband)

Ruth Stone, poet (husband)

Lost Other Loved One

Patch Adams, physician (uncle)

Francis Bacon, painter (male companion)

Mark Ballas, dancer and singer/songwriter (uncle)

Drew Barrymore, actress (aunt)

Emmanuelle Béart, actress (boyfriend)

Walter Becker, singer/songwriter (girlfriend)

Elizabeth Bishop, poet (female companion)

David Bowie, singer/songwriter and actor (half-brother)

Lord Byron, poet (grandfather; also, Byron’s father may have died by suicide)

Barbara Cartland, romance novelist (grandfather)

Jamie Lee Curtis, actress (grandfather)

Salvador Dali, painter (grandfather)

Charles Darwin, naturalist (uncle)

Paula Deen, chef (nephew)

Jonathan Edwards, theologian (uncle)

Carmen Electra, actress and model (half-brother)

Eminem, singer/songwriter (two uncles, one of whom he regarded as a father)

Sylvie Fréchette, Canadian synchronized swimmer (fiancé)

Art Garfunkel, singer/songwriter (girlfriend)

Al Green, singer (girlfriend)

Angelica Huston, actress (half-brother)

Ferguson Jenkins, baseball pitcher (fiancée)

John Kerry, U.S. senator (grandfather)

Maxine Hong Kingston, writer (aunt)

Eli Manning, NFL quarterback (grandfather)

Peyton Manning, NFL quarterback (grandfather)

MC Lars, singer/songwriter (college roommate)

George Michael, singer/songwriter (uncle)

Arthur Miller, playwright (uncle)

Liza Minnelli, singer and actress (aunt)

Monica, singer/songwriter (boyfriend)

Demi Moore, actress (stepfather)

Denis Potvin, hockey player (cousin: Marc Potvin)

Theodore Roethke, poet (uncle)

Mark Ruffalo, actor (best friend)

Betrand Russell, philosopher (granddaughter)

Mary Shelley, author (half-sister)

David Spade, actor and comedian (stepfather)

Britney Spears, singer (grandmother)

Benjamin Spock, pediatrician (grandson)

John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court justice (uncle)

Ben Stiller, actor and comedian (grandmother)

Amy Tan, writer (grandmother)

Sigourney Weaver, actress (uncle)

Florence Welch, singer (grandmother)

Elie Wiesel, writer (close friend: Primo Levi)