For over 10 years, I had imagined conversing with David Schwimmer, who played Ross on the television show Friends. When I discovered he was going to speak at a conference I could potentially convince my boss to send me to, I wondered if this would finally be my chance to have that real-life conversation. Without much thought, I registered for the conference and booked my flight from Boston to New York. It wasn’t until I arrived, weeks later, that panic set in. In my head, David Schwimmer always said the perfect things. What if the real-life conversation didn’t live up to that? Was it worth the risk? Strange as it may seem, there was a lot at stake.
My father’s younger sister, Gail, was the comedy division manager at NBC, where she worked with the cast of Friends, Will & Grace, Blossom, and other shows. When she died by suicide at the age of 39 in November 1999, an episode of Friends was dedicated to her. Since she passed away before the internet became a daily part of our lives, this dedication is one of the first things that comes up when you search her name. It’s as if her whole life is summed up in the question, “Who was Gail Joseph on Friends?” The answer is almost always incorrect.
The episode is called “The One with Ross’s Teeth,” where Ross over-bleaches his teeth and ends up on a date with a woman who has a black light. When the lights go out and the black light comes on, his teeth practically light up the room. I always thought it would have made my aunt laugh. Although she worked with many celebrities, her friends told me she had a special fondness for David Schwimmer. She even named one of her cats Rupert because apparently David used that name when checking into hotels. Thus, my long internal dialogue with a famous actor I had never met was born.
As a child growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, I considered my aunt to be the coolest adult I knew. When we visited her in Hollywood, everything we did together was brighter and funnier than anything else in my childhood. She was simply larger than life, and in her presence, I also felt bigger and more important. My aunt loved purple and had an apartment filled with purple things. When Wayne Newton visited her office at NBC, he wore a purple blazer. Gail anticipated George Clooney’s stardom after seeing him play the foreman of a plastic factory in Roseanne.
In her later years, she began to distance herself from my otherwise close-knit family, as if she was angry about something I didn’t understand. About 18 months before she died, I called her and begged her to be part of our family again. She said she couldn’t. That was the last time we spoke.
From my 16-year-old perspective, everything in her life seemed so exciting and glamorous. How could she feel that suicide was her only option? As comprehending the complex factors that led to her death was too difficult, the only “why” that made sense to me, as someone who adored her and felt adored by her, was that I must not have been good enough, that she must not have loved me that much. I replayed our last conversation over and over, trying to rewrite the ending. But no matter what I said, she still died. Believing I was bad and unworthy of love shaped two decades of my life.
I searched for answers everywhere. I was the only freshman in college with a private investigator. I had access to the police file from the day she died and spent years trying to forget what I saw in those documents. I took a trip to California to meet her friends. I resemble her so much that it was like seeing a ghost for them.
A few years ago, I even tried “past life regression” guided by a close friend, Elana, who is a practitioner. The idea is that, in a state of hypnosis, you can connect with past lives and visit the world between lives. Some people believe that world is like heaven, where lost loved ones can be found.
I was skeptical about the idea that our souls have lived past lives, but my friend explained that I didn’t have to believe in it to have a meaningful experience. I could consider it as a connection with my own inner wisdom.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax as Elana spoke softly. To my surprise, I soon found myself in a body I didn’t recognize, in a place I had never been, speaking a language I didn’t know. I witnessed that person’s (or was it mine?) death, and my soul made its way to the intermediate world. And there was Gail, exactly as I remembered her.
“Why?” I asked her.
She looked at me for a long time. “There is no ‘why’,” she finally responded.
And that was it. I was back in my living room, hearing Elana’s gentle voice as she welcomed me back to consciousness. I still don’t know exactly what happened in that room, but it left me with a profound wisdom.
There is no ‘why’.
After contemplating what that means, I now believe the lesson is not that there is no ‘why’, but that there is no ‘why’ that justifies her death. So my only option was to stop asking. My aunt, or maybe just my subconscious, was offering me a lifeline, an escape from the prison I had built out of guilt and shame. All I had to do was take it.
One of the saddest things for survivors of suicide loss is that their loved one’s life is often defined by their death: that moment overshadows everything else. When I stopped asking why, I made space for other questions. Who was she? What impact did she have? Who still remembers her?
This is where David Schwimmer comes in. In my head, this is how our conversation went:
I said, “Hello David, you worked with my aunt, Gail Joseph, a long time ago.”
And David replied, “I remember Gail, she did a great job and we all loved her.”
Though it wasn’t real, his words meant a lot to me because I needed to believe that she was loved and good at the work that meant so much to her.
What if I took the risk and spoke to David, and he said, “I don’t remember her”? Or what if I didn’t get to speak to him at all?
These fears had consumed me in a world of sobbing in my hotel room. I called my best friend, Sarah, and told her I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk the disappointment. After some deep breaths, we agreed that I would gather my courage and go downstairs because not trying would be the worst outcome.
I waited in the background as he spoke, hoping to catch him as he came out, but after his speech, he sat down to listen to the next speaker. When that was over, I went straight to David before nerves got the best of me, but a man approached him first. When they finally finished talking, David tried to sit back down, and that’s when I approached him and said, “Hello David, I’m Samantha. You worked with my aunt, Gail Joseph, a long time ago.”
He smiled and said, “Of course, I remember Gail. She was great. We really loved her.” Then he placed a hand over his heart and added, “I felt like she was family. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to think of her.”
I cried even more that night.
My aunt didn’t live to see her 40th birthday. Over the past year, this thought accompanied me as I approached 40, having to find a way to survive the surreal and painful experience of living longer than she ever would.
For the past 20 years, I have wondered why she took her own life, trying to heal the part of me that broke when she died. So I embarked on a quest to understand who she was.
Now it’s time to discover who I am. The time to…
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
