Help To Heal Your Heart

Life-changing Stories from Those Left Behind

by Kat Donnell

Heather Hays, award-winning journalist, evening-news anchor, green-eyed beauty, consummate professional. That’s what we see during the 6:00 and 9:00 news every weekday evening on Dallas’ Fox 4. What we don’t see is the pain, so skillfully hidden and, through the help of family, friends and her new book, almost gone.

Hays has lived the nightmare, the ambiguous phone call out of nowhere that begins with, “I have some bad news.” At that moment, the dream of Hays and her Prince Charming went from fairytale to nightmare in a matter of seconds.

Hays met Brett Herman on a fourth of July in Houston, and the brilliant fireworks lasted ten years. Within six months, the couple was engaged and had moved to the Hawaiian Islands, seeking a cozy cottage near the beach. One of their most memorable moments was when Hays was crowned Miss Hawaii USA. “It was Brett’s belief in me that led me to that moment, and it was his faith in me that helped me capture the crown that evening,” she recalls. “Five years to the day later, he was dead.”

Hays’ blossoming television career had moved them from Honolulu to the mainland and, finally, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she landed a job as news anchor for an
NBC affiliates. She has just started her job when the couple got into one of those arguments about everything and nothing at all. “I told him I never wanted to talk to him again,” she says. “I had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t. Brett walked into the garage, locked the doors to the garage and his vehicle, and turned on the engine. It was there that he closed his eyes for the last time.”

As Hays and their friends spread Brett’s ashes off of Waikiki Beach, they sang songs and told stories, laughing and crying at their memories. A few days later, Hays wrote a long letter to Brett telling him about the dolphins that played near the boat during the memorial. In her letter, she also spoke of her guilt and the unbearable pain.

Several years later, it was that letter that inspired Heather to write her book, Surviving Suicide: Help to Heal Your Heart.

Always the professional, she hid her pain from her viewing audience. She didn’t want to open herself or Brett’s memory to the stigma that often comes with suicide.

Instead, she told coworkers and friends that he had died in a car accident instead of by his own hand. She has since learned that unless we talk about suicide, it will remain a silent killer.

Hays no longer hides her pain. She speaks at conferences, luncheons, and news events, and she makes herself available to groups that may benefit from her knowledge and the resources that are available to help the healing process.

For Surviving Suicide, Hays interviewed dozens of parents, siblings, lovers, friends, and children from all over the world — all of whom had been left behind by suicide. They shared their stories, the heartbreak, the anger, the guilt, the fear and finally, the healing. Just as Hays had done, each wrote a letter to a loved one who had committed suicide.

“Putting your feelings on paper is a huge step toward healing your heart,” Hays says. “Many of the people interviewed for this book said it was the hardest thing they had ever done, but also the most healing. Communication is key to the healing process. Every person interviewed for this book has an email address, so emails can be exchanged and those lines of communication can be opened.”

Hays has a strong background of volunteer work that includes Girl Scouts of America, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Varity, the Children’s Charity, Starfish
Foundation, NAMI, Special Olympics, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Visiting Nurses Association, DIFFA, Homes for Pets, Peanut Butter Ministry, and Dallas Children’s
Charities. She sits on the board of directors for CONTACT, a crisis and counseling hotline.

No cause is more dear to Hay’s heart than suicide awareness. “I have learned from my own experience, and from speaking to countless numbers of others, that you can’t hold yourself responsible for someone else’s actions. If you can recognize any signs of unhappiness or personal despair, then you may be a step ahead by seeking professional help. But the fact remains that every 45 seconds, someone attempts to take his or her own life. Every 15 minutes someone succeeds.”