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it's not easy deleting people.
The other day I was flipping through my gmail contacts that were imported from my old hotmail/yahoo mail accounts. I had gone through and created a couple email lists for friends in the area that I email quite often, and decided to go through all my contacts and update them, deleting the people with whom I've fallen out of touch.
Then I ran across across his name, MH. He has been in there for a while, even though I hadn't contacted him in over 5 years. I wondered if I should delete him, in an effort to clean up my contact list. I hesitated, my mouse hovering over the button, while I thought about all the good memories I had of him.
Exactly who is he, you ask?
In grad school, through several mutual friends, I managed to make acquaintances with MH. He was a nice guy, a little bit nerdy, a little too into nerdy-type activities like Star Trek, but an overall good guy. He was good people. I always liked hanging out with him, having fond memories of time spent together.
A few months after I graduated and left NY for Boston, he killed himself in a manner that left no chances for survival. Afterwards, I would morbidly joke with Frank that he really knew what he was doing.
Suicide never makes sense, and I don't know that anyone will ever be able to understand the motivations behind it. As most people who know someone who has committed suicide might say, I really never saw it coming. He and his girlfriend had just got engaged and they had started planning their wedding. He was having a decent time at work, enjoying what he was doing. It all seemed to be going well (at least to an outsider like me), so it was a total shock when I found out had happened. The really sad part is that his fiancée had to send out notices to all the wedding guests informing them that it was cancelled due to his death. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been, especially having to do it right after it happened.
I've had other friends who have died, but only a couple have committed suicide. It never seems to get easier when I think about them, or run across their names in my address book.
In the end, I decided not to delete his entry.
Comments
Why did you decide not to delete his entry?
Are you trying to preserve certain memories by keeping it? What do you think will happen if you remove it?
A very touching post, btw.
I've never had a whole lot of sympathy for people who commit suicide, both in the abstract (people I don't know) and in the literal sense. Two of my fraternity brothers committed suicide at very different times in their lives.
One was a pledge brother of mine. He never talked about it, but the inordinate amount of pressure his father put on him didn't make it surprising. This kid could have woken up one morning, turned water to wine and done miracle after miracle and his dad would have bitched him out because he didn't do it right. I felt bad for him as he was truly a friend, but I can't say I've thought of him much over the years.
The other guy was two years older than me and suicide was a family tradition. His dad had done it, as had his granddad and he regularly talked about doing it himself. The one time he made the mistake of saying it to me I tore him a new one and told him I thought it was one of the most cowardly things a person could do because of all the damage left behind to family and friends. I think it might have been the first time anyone fired back at him on this because he was stunned.
Unfortunately, he waited until he had a wife and two kids before he decided he couldn't handle life's pressures. I feel a heck of a lot of sympathy for them and the situation they've been left with but not too much for him. If he was going to do it he should have done so before he would be leaving three other people in the lurch.
I have trouble fathoming how any American could consider there life so bad that ending it was the only viable option.
Depression runs in the female side of my wife's family and she and my sister in law are very vigilant in taking care of it (in my wife's case) or in my SIL's case making sure the symptoms don't sneak up on them. Both of these guys had people they could have gone to for support, it staggers me that they didn't do so.
Ok, I'm done meandering about now.
While it makes me incredibly angry when a friend commits suicide, it also leaves me feeling helpless and sad. The anger abates in time, but the feelings of helplessness and sadness take much longer to leave me. I'm not sure if I will ever relieve myself of those feelings.
There are times when people make their lives out to be happier than they really are. I know for a long time I was so terribly depressed I pondered committing suicide. I chose not to in the end because I have two children, pregnant with the third child and would have left behind a spouse as well. I evenutally realized that this would never make anything better. I'd be gone and my kids would be without a mother.
We had a friend who committed suicide... We knew he was depressed, and my spouse was torn by it... but we're all still living and he could have always gotten help, but sometimes people can't see the positive side of anything and it just gets overwhelming.
Great post. Thank you.
Thank you for coming and commenting. I really appreciate it.