Faces of Suicide

Remembering ...



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Mathis, George Francis
11 February 1941 - 18 June 1981
Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Our Remembrance
~My sweet George ~ After 34 years, not a day passes that you
aren’t felt somehow. It is still heartbreaking that all the love in the
world could not hold you here. The inner torment you suffered with for
decades had to end. The constant head noise, the deepest darkest depression
and manias you could barely deal with until they would pass. All of your cries
for help seemingly went unnoticed in the mental health world, as there was
not a cure to be found in the 50s, 60s, and 70s ~ leading up to 1981. Your
chemical imbalance won out. When you left, the world lost not only your
most brilliant mind, but a truly gifted classical pianist…recitals as a child
prodigy i n Jacksonville University in your teen years; your passion for
music ranged from classical to hard rock – your love for it all; your gift as
a machinist who crafted amazingly beautiful designs from any imaginable
materials; your passion for speed; the motorcycles you meticulously maintained
and polished; ahhh…and your love for the ladies. . . You deeply loved your
Lord, His Word, and cried to me countless times how you only wanted to return
back to Him. In hindsight after witnessing decades of pharmaceutical and
medical advancement in the mental health realm, your bipolar disorder,
coupled with the traumatic brain injury from the tree fall at age 12, made for
some genuine mental torture that none of could ever comprehend. I saw beyond
the stigma associated with the way your life ended, as I understood how
real your pain was. If only we could have held you here a while longer – long
enough to receive the help your mind needed. You only wanted to love and
be loved. Yo u only wanted to beachcomb 24/7 and feel the sun on your body
while you searched unendingly for the ever elusive shark’s teeth, and be
anywhere near a body of water, as that was where you could find peace. You
cherished your 7-year-old son and 18-yr-old daughter and never would have wanted
to leave them. Remembering you today and every day, you beautiful soul – my
sweet George~
~Loved forever and never forgotten~