Suicide: In Memory of My Friend

A few weeks ago, a friend committed suicide.

This was the first friend I’ve ever lost this way.  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

He wasn’t a “great” friend of mine, or even a “good” friend of mine.  But we were friends who went to Seminary together.  He’d just graduated with his Masters of Divinity last May.

Our passing-in-between-classes conversations always revolved around fashion.  He had the coolest laptop bag. Ever.  My friend wore thick black horn-rimmed glasses like the ones Justin Timberlake has taken to wearing lately.  My friend always had the coolest button-up plaid shirts, alternative style jeans and killer loafers.  And if you thought the way he dressed was cool, you should have seen his tatoo’s!  I’m tellin’ you they were frickin’ sweet.

One time, he gave me advice on my ideas for the next 5 tatoo’s I want to get.  He’s the one who noticed when I got a new pair of shoes and always noticed and encouraged the myriad of risky hairstyles I tried last year.  A big, tall alternative-ish white dude, we were as different as could be, brought together by fashion! 🙂  One time, my friend & I compared ipods and giggled over how dramatically different our choice in music was.  He was a friend.  But now he’s gone.

He took his life the day after Christmas and every day since then I’ve thought of him.  Wondering why on earth he did it.  Wishing he would have called me.

Not that I have some sort of Savior complex or anything, but I suppose the feeling of wishing I could have helped somehow just lingers.  Probably, many of us around my friend are wondering similar things: could any of us said or done something different?  Is there anything at all that would have kept him from such a selfish and final decision?

And that reminds me of another phase of mourning: anger.  I can’t help but be angry at my friend for what he did.  Especially since I have another friend at Seminary who is struggling for his life with Cancer.  He’s young, passionate for change and of the most upstanding men you will ever meet.  He fights for his life, while my other friend gave up the fight.

While on the one hand I am angry, I also want to see it from his perspective.  Ultimately he felt that he just couldn’t take it any longer.  Whatever “it” was.

I’ll never forget December of 2007 when one night I inexplicably plunged -and I mean plunged into a deep dark depression while I was away on a business trip in New York. I spent the entire flight to ORD crying.  Balling.  I got back to my hotel room alone, cold and very afraid.  After spending an hour on the phone with a suicide hot line I called my husband Dave to cry, scream and pray through whatever had just happened to me.  Due to weather, I was also grounded in Chicago.  It was awful.  Point is, I can understand my friend not believing he had another option.  I’ve been there.  Many times actually.  Maybe my friend didn’t have the support structures that I do.  He was single.  He didn’t have the uber supportive, prayer-warrior spouse that I do.  Maybe.

Yeah, I’m pissed he took it all away from all of us, but I have grace for him too.

Yesterday, as I processed all of this with Dave, I made an iron-clad promise to him that suicide was never an option I would take no matter how redonkulously bad things may be.  As someone who has struggled with depression on and off, in the lowest of low times, suicide has had this disturbing appeal to me, which has lessened somewhat since becoming a mother.  Understandably,  Dave & I are a bit jittery since in addition to the aforementioned scare, 11 years ago while we were engaged -prompted by God- Dave came over and stopped me from ending my life, in the nick of time.  That, however is another post for another day.

As I remember my friend and seek to honor his life, first I must say: if you are suicidal, please, oh please, get help.

Second, I invite you my seminary friends to post a comment here about what you most remembered and loved about my friend.  What you learned from him, funny memories or anything.  Many of you knew him so much better than I did.  Let’s honor him with kind words.

Lastly, let’s all say a prayer for his friends and family who will mourn his loss for the rest of their lives.