A Tragic Symmetry
This story contains references to suicide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else and can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.
He tried not to dwell on it, but deep down, Mark Lawrance feared that one day it would happen again. Police would arrive at his quiet home along Lake Maxinhall on the city’s northeast side with heart-rending news. That day came October 30, 2017, a little more than 24 hours since he had last seen his 32-year-old son, Joe.
As Mark settled into bed around 10 p.m. that Monday, his thoughts wandered from his workday ahead at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, where he was senior vice president, to his wife, Jan, returning home the next day from a girls’ weekend in Arizona. He fell into a deep sleep, jolted awake just before midnight by a knocking on the front door. His body tensed; his mind raced.
The security camera footage on his cellphone revealed two figures standing at the front entrance, one in uniform. He threw on his clothes and scrambled down the stairs and across the living room. He passed elaborate paintings Joe and his identical twin brother, Will, had done over the course of their lives, works that filled him with tremendous pride. But in that frantic moment, all he felt was panic.
When he opened the door, he saw the somber faces of a police officer and a chaplain. They didn’t have to say a word. “It’s my son, isn’t it?” Mark asked. They nodded. The chaplain confirmed Joe had taken his own life. Distraught and paralyzed by feelings of helplessness, Mark struggled to focus. But he knew he would have to make the hardest call of his life.
More than 1,600 miles away in Sedona, Jan sat in an art studio with three college friends, making decorative objects out of glass, laughing and reminiscing. Then came Mark’s call.
“And it was—boom—immediate screaming,” Mark recalls. “All I could hear was that scream.”
For the Lawrance family, what played out that night was tragically familiar. Joe’s death came six years, one month, and 20 days after his brother, Will, took his life at the age of 26. The family would soon return to Crown Hill Cemetery, surrounded once again by hundreds of mourners and a collection of art, grieving and struggling to make sense of what happened.
Jan remembers the weight of unbearable loss, the energy it took to simply stand up. It seemed unimaginable to lose them both, but there was a different feeling in the wake of the second twin’s death. “A silver lining was knowing they were back together,” she says. “I think they shared a soul and needed to be united.”
Joe and Will left behind more than memories and family photos. Their spectacular works on canvas and paper have become journals of sorts, revealing the twins’ hopes, dreams, passions, and the connection between them—along with a deteriorating mental state that their parents now strive to understand through their art.
MARK AND JAN met on spring break at a campground in the Florida Panhandle in 1975. Both were juniors, Mark at Indiana University and Jan at Michigan State. A weekend flirtation developed into a long-distance romance. They married a year later and started a family. Their daughter, Erin, arrived first, followed by a second daughter, Devin. The couple hoped for one
