The Reason...

Today, the first thing I saw at work was the coroner taking a body from the facility. Literally, the first thing I saw. I opened the door and there they were. It struck me particularly hard today as I received a phone call last night telling me that a friend of mine had attempted suicide and was in the hospital. He is 53 years old and has a history of depression.

I am having a flood of random thoughts and am finding it difficult to make sense of them all. Besides my friend's attempt, I had a cousin that did commit suicide fall of 2008. And along with many other people in this world it is something that has crossed my mind when I am deep in the "weeds" ( see the post titled "The Weeds"). To be clear, I do not want to commit suicide, only had fleeting thoughts when in my darkest moments. I think everyone at the very least has thought about it once.

What both my cousin's suicide and my friends attempt has given me is an up close and personal view of the families that are left to suffer. At first I think, what a selfish thing to do, to leave your loved ones to suffer like that. But then another thought hit me. I think it is probably that the pain is so intense they will do anything to stop it. Maybe they think that the family will suffer for a little while but compared to the pain they feel it seems minute. I am sure a lot of the time they may even think the family is better without them.

I suppose my message today is for the families. It's ok and understandable to be angry. It is not up to you to understand why they did it, even if you think you know, that's probably not the reason. Even if they tell you why, that is probably not the reason. I guess I say this trying to comfort myself...

The reason he gave is me.