50 years after the death of a broadcast journalist, younger brother shares grief journey in new book

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A new book is bringing attention to the story of a broadcast journalist who struggled silently with mental health at a time that no one talked about it.

Former WLFI journalist Don Lambert was news director and the 5 and 6 p.m. anchor in the late 70s. It was just a few years after the golden age of broadcast journalism, and Don wanted to be in the middle of it all.

Don followed his dreams from WLFI-TV in West Lafayette to KIII-TV in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Don’s younger brother Steve Lambert said, “Don was my hero, my role model, he was five years older than I was. He’s the reason I got into journalism, I wound up spending 34 years in the newspaper business. I wanted to be like Don.”

Steve is now sharing Don’s story through his book “Don’s Door.”

“Don was 28 and I was 23 when he took his life. He had been in Corpus Christi for about nine months, and he was super popular there. He had a consumer affairs segment on TV where he would go out and solve problems. Clearly, he struggled with solving his own,” said Steve.

Steve lost his brother to suicide following a battle with mental health very few knew about. Steve says back then, you just didn’t talk about those kinds of things.

Steve’s journey with grief has been ongoing for nearly 50 years.

“His death was the most profound thing that ever happened to me. You’re always asking yourself why and what didn’t I see. ‘Was I a bad brother? Did I not care? How could I not have seen this?’ But I didn’t have a way to express this.”

Things started to change when Steve visited their childhood home in Illinois with his wife and children and met the new owner. He found out she had bought the home from his parents.

She invited them into the house, and Steve kept picturing a door in the basement he remembered Don had marked as his own. As they made their way downstairs, he saw she had kept it marked with the words: “Gym, off limit, stay out.”

For him, it was a breakthrough moment.

His brother Don had written on that door as a young teen, filling the room with workout equipment.

Steve says he now has that door hanging in his home.

Following the visit to his childhood home, Steve was desperate for more answers. He began his search for Don’s former coworkers to fill the gaps.

“One of the things I think I feared most was that my brother was forgotten. Maybe I was the only one who remembered him, that our family was the only one that remembered him,” said Steve. “But it turned out that a lot of people had remembered him and that was very empowering. It gave me the strength to put together a book that explores suicide and explores the conversations we need to have.”

Through his book “Don’s Door”, he hopes to help others deal with their own grief. He says grief when losing a loved one to suicide isn’t harder than any other grief, it’s just “different.”

His goal is to be a

“In my case, finding peace was opening those doors after I discovered that door.”

“Don’s Door’ can be purchased at this link if you’d like to read more about Don’s door and Steve’s path of navigating grief.