Suicide, Part I

"The hardest part of this is leaving you" -MCR

When someone dies, that you have a relationship with be it family, friend, neighbor, hero, fellow soldier, it not only reminds you of mortality, opens up the evaluation of life again but it bites a little part of you so hard that it leaves a life long mark and takes a little chunk of you too.

I've lost my share of family and friends starting from a very early age (single digits). Caring for the dyeing, funerals, comforting those around us through the sad times, wakes, these are all rites of passages.

However, suicide is a little bit different. Physical illness, accidents, tragedies, didn't see it coming or did see it coming , there's an intangible outside force involved. A suicide, is totally different, especially for those closest to the person. In retrospect, there may be signs but often, you don't see it coming during the time leading up to the suicide. In the few instances I have experienced losing someone through suicide, I didn't see it coming. Till this day, I still miss them and I often wonder what life would be if they were still around. For one of them, I still keep the letter he left me. It's a thank you letter but at the time, we were so young, I had no idea it would be his last communication with me. He was also an artist. I remember him well and I wish he were still here.

Suicide. Is it natural to think about taking your own life?. I admit that I've come close to taking my life but "life's promise" has always pulled me away from it. Life's promise could be the potential of your talent, your child, a friend, etc. Of course, life goes on with or without us but how will it go on? is part of life's promise we all keep in our beings. You can also call it hope. That's what stopped me the few times I was at that threshold.

So many think about taking their own life. Many carry through with it but if you could do something that helped someone decide not to, wouldn't that be worth it? That "threshold" is frequently visited space. What are we doing to wave the detour sign when people walk up to that threshold?