Suicides Aren't Painless

    As a kid I was not exposed to many suicides. I heard about the kamikaze Japanese pilots hitting our ships and troops in World War II, or watched a few movies like the Poseidon Adventure where the hero sacrifices himself to escape from the overturned cruise ship. Suicides could be heroic, I was aware, but they were not the wretched tragedies that most turn out to be.

    A suicide touched my community last week, and it affected some  in my family directly. I discussed it a little with my sister who lives in the west over the phone; we mentioned a couple of friends that it happened to. She commented about a former tenant of my mother and step-father who had died of suicide. What? Pete? My mind and heart immediately became overwhelmed with my sense of loss and sadness, because I know the people in my life who have taken their own lives, but he was not one of them! My eyes almost instantly filled with tears as I thought, "Not him!" Later I asked my step-dad; he was not aware of any suicide death associated with Pete. I assigned my daughter, another one in the Western U.S., to figure out if Pete is still alive and what his status is.

    The Smiths of Bloomington, neighbors on First Street, seemed to be extra sensitive about the topic of suicide. They thought that the theme song of the popular situation comedy M.A.S.H was inappropriate, because it sang that "suicide is painless, it brings so many changes..." I am not sure what that line really means, or is trying to say, but the Smiths were virulently opposed. Sure.

    

    Me, too. I am opposed to suicide. The ones that have affected me in my life have been hard. Sad. Really difficult to understand. Even now, I review what was going on with some of my buddies and cohorts and I wonder: was it X? Was it Y? Well, many would argue that the questions are moot, that is no longer worth wondering about. I cannot help it. I care about them, I like to solve problems, I like to analyze matters and potentially avoid future issues like those. 

    Right? There are no solutions, easy or otherwise, to all of life's problems. Sometimes death is the answer, it is the denouement. Lamentably, tragically, fittingly. Ultimately. 

    Death is an eventuality. It finds us all. But do we choose it, that is this question. This polemic.

    Suicides take some of us, each time. We ask so many questions, but the answers are not all there.

    We celebrate the lives of the victims, we remember the good times. 

    We try to go about helping ourselves in the meantime. Steel ourselves for better and happier times.

    Be at a point, or points, where we survive the day, the month, the year, the life time.