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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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2:03 p.m. - 2011-01-05
I read in the paper the other day that a woman I went to high school with committed suicide. I wasn't friends with her back then, nor do I know anything about her life nearer to her death except that she was divorced and had a daughter. How old the daughter is, is unknown too. I've been thinking about that woman a lot. I've wondered how she could do such a thing? The selfishness of such an act is monumental. Of course I don't know her circumstance, perhaps she had some horrible disease that was killing her anyway and opting out early was her way of imposing the only measure of control she had left. Rather than waiting for Mr Death and racking up horrendous medical bills for those left behind to deal with this woman took the Kevorkian route. I've thought about her daughter. How awful it must be for that daughter to think that her mother would choose to be dead over staying here. That the daughter and what she will have to carry forever was less important than the mother's selfish desire to be out of whatever pain and circumstance she was in when she chose to die? I've thought about the colossal gall of this woman to leave her dead carcass for someone to find. What a terrible thing to do to someone! Even if it's an EMT or a cop, someone who sees death and its fallout as part of their job. The brave and loving ones who clean up Life's messes and aftereffects. How could anyone do that on purpose? No matter how big or incurable the pain is? Imagine stumbling upon a former human being and having to call 911 and go through the horror of being witness and answer questions and have the image of that dead person be part of someone else's memories? Who could DO that? I've been thinking about that woman and how alone she must have felt that those concerns were moot. Morbid, I know. But there's been times when the despair and the hopelessness in my own life have nearly overwhelmed. I've been thinking about whether it was grit and honesty and a last tiny amount of decency that stopped me or whether it was simply cowardice? Too chickenshit to live, too chickenshit to die. I have no pat answers or solid conclusions. All I do know is that the woman I went to high school with left a mess and a burden that no one has the right to dump on someone else. I don't care how sad and desperate you might be.
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