Yesterday, I saw the aftermath of a suicide. My friends were sorry that I had to see such a thing and asked whether I was okay, and I was pretty sure I was. But today, mostly my thoughts return to the naked belly of the man on the MAX tracks, being promptly covered by a white-ish tarp behind the glow of police car lights.
I'm no stranger to suicide... not my own attempts, thankfully. But I've seen it in those around me. It's something I should, at the very least, be familiar with.
Yet today, when I took the same route home, all I could imagine was the desperation that would drive someone to crawl up the side of a bridge railing and launch himself 10-stories downward over traffic. In those few brief seconds of flight, I can imagine only peace, terror or enormous regret. And in this case, 2 out of 3 is bad.
I'm no stranger to suicide... not my own attempts, thankfully. But I've seen it in those around me. It's something I should, at the very least, be familiar with.
Yet today, when I took the same route home, all I could imagine was the desperation that would drive someone to crawl up the side of a bridge railing and launch himself 10-stories downward over traffic. In those few brief seconds of flight, I can imagine only peace, terror or enormous regret. And in this case, 2 out of 3 is bad.