It isn’t the phenomenon of suicide that disturbs me; getting to a point where the prospect of death has become preferable to the pain of living is something that happened to me once. The fact that it was someone I knew and talked to several times brings it into sharper focus, but even that isn’t it. It’s the method.
Committing suicide by overdose somehow leaves open the possibility of rescue, as does leaping into a body of water intending to drown. And standing on a railway track is a matter of waiting for the end to come. Shooting is both immediate and proactive. There’s no room for second thoughts or the possibility of rescue.
And so I drove home today wondering what frame of mind he was in during that brief period between applying pressure to the trigger and having his head blown apart by a 12-bore cartridge. How can any of us know, unless we get to that same point ourselves? So how can any of us pass pejorative judgement on suicides, as some people do?
2 comments:
i hope i never get to that stage. no no no no no!
I hope you don't too, Jen. Might mess up the future.
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