Suicide

Sometimes things that happen are just plain odd. Technically I guess you would call them coincidence, synchronicity, or ironic.

For me, these things happen only every so often....or maybe I just notice them when they are blatantly obvious.

Here is what happened last night. Sum had a 4-H meeting. During the meeting my son called me. I cut the call short and asked him if I could call him back when I got home from the meeting.

By the time I got home with all the late night commotion that comes from coming in late I forgot to call him back.

I made a mental note to call him back the next day after he got settled from his 10 hour long work day.

As my day went on I checked the clock periodically so I could call him back at a time that would be convenient for both of us. Once again my day got away from me and late evening set in.

I went about doing my usual evening computer ritual of checking my e-mail and my blog/blogs. As I was reading one of my favorites JUST A BALD MAN's blog post, Suicide, for whatever reason it reminded me I needed to call my son back. I immediately stopped before I even finished the post to make the return call to my son.

When my son answered his phone we made our usual greetings. Next he informed me that his first cousin, (his father's brothers son) had committed suicide. After the shock of hearing about this little boy that we had spent so much time with growing up sunk in I thought about the blog post about suicide that I had just been reading a few short minutes ago.

Then I thought about this boy's mother who not only had been my sister-in-law for many years but also my best friend. I felt for her, I felt the pain she must be in to hear the news that her only child...her son, had ended his life.

Suicide is a delicate subject. In my lifetime I have known a few people that have committed suicide. Right off hand I can count five...one of them being someone I had a two year relationship with after me and my first husband separated. Emotional issues attract emotional issues I presume...

I have often heard that suicide is a cowardly thing to do. In my opinion it takes more guts to end your life than most people have. And yes, in my troublesome teen years I thought about suicide many times. Looking back, I guess it was the one time in my life that I should be grateful for my religious upbringing. Our religion taught us to believe that if someone committed suicide they were going to hell...period. The fear of going somewhere where there was an ugly red man with a pointed tail and pitchfork chucking folks into a lake of fire was enough to make me think twice about my situation.

I still had raw emotions and low self-worth that had to be dealt with though so instead of suicide I did stupid things like slice big gashes on my stomach and down my legs with scissors or other sharp objects. I hated myself and it was the only self-infliction that I felt I wouldn't get in trouble for...it was also easy to hide. I didn't know it then but now I know that I was a cutter. It was easy to explain away scratches and even easier to hide them.

I don't think I did the cutting very long before I found another self-destructive outlet...drugs and alcohol.

Nowadays life is much better for me but it was a long, hard road to get me where I am today...which isn't all that far but in comparison to where I was I'd say I'm doing pretty good.

I guess it all boils down to one thing in the end. None of us come out of this life unscathed in one way or another. Some of us decide to hang out till the end and others don't. It's called "free will".

“Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early.”