Posted on Thu, Dec. 08, 2005
Bud Kennedy/ Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Before Dallas, before the big-time TV job, Heather Hays' news reports never included her own private heartbreak.

Now, the KDFW/Channel 4 news anchor is telling the world about losing her fiancé to suicide nine years ago.

Her new book comforts anyone left behind by the suicide of a loved one.

She will sign books Saturday in Fort Worth. This was one story so heartfelt that it couldn't be confined to the TV screen.

Hays came home to Texas five years ago as a new anchor with a master's degree, long blond hair and one line in her biography that instantly drew all the attention: "former Miss Hawaii USA."

She also came home still grieving the loss of the man she had loved for 10 years. She and Brett Herman had dated since she was 19

He had suffered from depression before. But nobody in either family dreamed that one day in 1996, depression would leave him dead in his garage, hours after the couple had argued by long distance.

"It left me with so many questions," she said last week. "And I knew I'd never get any of the answers."

Finally, she turned to other survivors for help.

They gave her their answers in Surviving Suicide: Help to Heal Your Heart.

Instead of retelling her own story, she tells almost 60 stories of survivors, from that of a 60-year-old who lost her sister to that of a 4-year-old who lost a dad.

They share the longing, the grief -- and the guilt.

Hays is still haunted by her last words to Herman in the heat of an argument: "I never want to talk to you again."

"I know in my head I'm not to blame," she said. "Nobody's to blame."

Words don't take anyone else's life.

Depression takes that life.

"But in my heart," she said, "I still feel sometimes like it's my fault."

Mostly, she feels sad "that he didn't think he could stay around."

For almost two months, she didn't even tell her friends and co-workers at a Wisconsin TV station how Herman had died.

She was afraid to acknowledge that her fiancé lost his life to suicide.

"There's such a stigma," she said. "There shouldn't be. But there is."

She finally took the risk of telling friends -- and, eventually, viewers.

Now, she's taking yet another risk by publishing and promoting her own book.

KDFW is not involved in the book, although the station granted permission, she said.

"I know there are people who are going to judge me," she said. "But I want people who have lost someone to know that they are not alone. Until you lose someone, the grief is so hard to understand."

Now 39, Hays lives in a suburb of Dallas. She volunteers and emcees events for CONTACT Crisis Line. The agency will get part of the $21.95 from each book sale.

She will sign books in Fort Worth from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Borders Books Music & Café, 4613 S. Hulen St.

Her book ends with crisis support advice and e-mail addresses. She hopes readers will write the 60-plus survivors who shared their stories.

In her ending, she writes: "I still don't understand why Brett left us, but after all these years, I smile a lot more when I think of him. … Thank you for reading these stories."

And thank you, Heather, for the stories.