On Suicide

A friend of mine committed suicide last Thursday, August 27, 2009. He did it by jumping off the Vista Avenue Viaduct, or "Suicide Bridge", in Portland, Oregon, which, if you ask me, is a pretty cliched way to go out for somebody who considered himself an iconoclast. I mean, the bridge is called the fucking "Suicide Bridge", for chrissakes. But I guess, at the end, he was less interested in a final stroke of creativity than in sending a message, and when it comes to bridge-jumpers, the message is invariably, "Fuck you, world! Look what you made me do! Now clean this up."

Suicide is normally a private affair, and it takes a special kind of egotist to do it in public and to leave one's broken body for an innocent mass-transit commuter to stumble over. He was a friend, and I've known him for over 20 years, and I was even his room-mate on two separate occasions, but that doesn't excuse this self-indulgent act of emo nihilism. Suicide is a big middle-finger to everybody you've ever known who has struggled with depression and came out the other side better for it. It's the final solution of those too lazy for life.

Life is hard, and it's littered with more disappointment than victory. It's filled with disloyal friends, bad parenting, poor decisions, and uncooperative weather. Welcome to the party, pal. I'm sorry you took 40 years and never figured that out. The secret to contentment is not to dwell on everything dark, but to exult in everything bright. Maybe I sound like a motivational speaker when I say that, but it took me awhile to understand that basic truth.

I've been depressed. I've contemplated suicide. I've been broken-hearted, betrayed and some other alliterative state I can't think of right now, but no matter how much thought I paid the easy way out, I never took it. I never took it because I don't hate my friends and family. Their sorrow and anguish was too high a price to pay, so I struggled through, and things got better. Things got a lot better.

Maybe things would have gotten better for you, but unfortunately, you'll never know that because you decided to be a coward. I'm going to miss you, and I will fondly remember laughing around the D&D table, but that doesn't mean I'm not profoundly fucking furious with you, asshole. Because your final gesture was an act of pure hate for everybody in your life, and I'm afraid I can't find it in myself to repay that much hate with too much sympathy.

You killed yourself; nobody did it for you.