The Suicide Note That Changed Me...

I am lucky enough to have only known one person who has committed suicide.   Although we had spent several months working together, once I had left my job for good and the years started to roll by, the very idea of him began to fade, as do most people and things we encounter in life.

But nonetheless, I remember where I was when I heard the news.   I remember how shocked and cold I felt, even though I hadn't seen or thought about him in quite some time.  His death immediately making me feel a heart-wrenching sympathy for those closest to him.  A sympathy purely driven by the horrible notion that if a person I hardly cared about had the ability to pull so much emotion from me, I didn't even want to think about what it had done to them.  

So out of respect for my ex-coworker, I decided to attend his memorial.  There were people from all walks of life there.  People in his family and those who barely knew him. It was pretty much what one might expect a memorial to be, except for one bizarre thing. Unbelievably, his family had decided to print out several piles of his suicide note for everybody to take and read.  And as much as I wanted to ignore it, it was just one of those things in life that you can't disregard no matter how hard you try. So with some hesitation I quickly took a copy of my friend's last earthly thoughts and read the message he had so neatly typed and prepared for just this moment.  And what I read....the only way to explain it is to simply say his words made complete sense, while at the same time, making no sense at all.

So after all this time, after all the years that have passed since he's passed,  you'd think his memory would have dug a nice hole in the back of my brain, only to come out on special occasions.  But to my surprise, I still think about him all the time.  From the awe of seeing the first black man elected president to the simple excitement of getting my first iPhone.  He has missed, and forever will be missing, every significant moment life had had in store for him.  And for that, I feel such a profound sadness, a lingering question that will forever haunt me.  How could he give it all up?

My friend of course had his own deep dark reasons for doing what he did.  And nobody, especially me, will ever fully understand them, but in his death, he has in turn made an enormous impact on my life. Because of him, I will never take this life for granted.  Because of him, I will always make time to smell the roses.