oh, the things you can think if you spend any part of any day with a dead guy twirlin' in the wind outside and an eerie calm of the storm inside you, watching the chaos. observing a boss making the most composed of 911 calls. being ever so bosslike, you understand the coldness in a way and are also put off by it. could there have been no urgency in his voice? then you remember oh yeah, this is a guy whose baby daughter was born with stage three cancer and he watched her die over a four month period. hence the ice. ok.
overheard: is he breathing? no. are you sure? uh-huh. seen: close frend of his goes out because, what if that's wrong. comes back in with this expression. walking agitatedly with no direction. his face. his expression. disgust. rage. helplessness. incomprehension. what? why?
overheard: he just ordered those things there (indicating some phone equiment). he just got those things for his chair (indicating fancy chair device for bad backs).
later, overheard, in an anguished voice: 'he has a voicemail message'. no response.
and for cryin' out loud who the hell hangs themself in an alley alongside the garage of their workplace? how many bizarre things happen in minds that i'll never be able to fathom as long as i walk this earth? either it was to spare his wife, or it was to punish someone at work. and the back injury. no doubt he had to be medicated to work, and he was barely hobbling. with a mind clouded by narcotics not quite numbing the pain, there would be the lowering of inhibitions and the increase in hopelessness. pain wears you down. drugs wear you down.
but what an effort it must have been! a guy barely walking, getting outside without his cane and far enough up a tree to hang from it? in a busy alley? perhaps he meant to get caught. perhaps he stalled a bit, hoping someone would stop him. it's almost always busy -- cars, exercise walkers, lots of people. it's an alley but it's big as most two way streets and runs through a good sized industrial park. i think he hoped to be caught and stopped. the despair would have been overwhelming when he was not. maybe he made a bargain in his mind, if someone stops me i'm meant to live? however consider this is a man with backpain drugs. a good desperate cry for help would have been only on OD away. he chose a much more definite exit. maybe i only want to think he was ambivalent. maybe i don't want to know how bad it would be to have no doubts.
the rest of the day i was a study in contradictions: strangely detatched from usual grocery store errands, with a heightened awareness of the beauty of this world. having weird internal responses to the standard 'hi how are you' of the store clerks. answering 'fine', brightly, so unlike the reality. luckily i didn't blurt anything out. halfway glad i'm reclusive at work and didn't know his wife by name from company picnics, halfway wishing i'd taken more time to make even the small talk with him. he was a guy i knew for three years who i never discussed anything but lunchroom topics: caffeine and calories, mondays = bad fridays = good, the weather. he was a nice guy. he drove a classic vw bug and wore zeppelin tshirts on occasion. and yeah lately he seemed in a funk, but who doesn't have funks? i'm not miss mary sunshine on my best days.
gotta question seeing a bummed guy messing with a length of rope and letting it slide. however it's such an obscure clue. hindsight, of course.
i do hope he found peace. he apparently needed it much more than i can ever imagine.
Amen to that...
It is so darned hard to figure out what goes on in the minds of those who take themselves out of the picture. I've seen more than my share over the years, professionally, personally and one combo, but I just cannot see that answer.
Maybe in the abstract... But even then.
I took an overdose of pills and alcohol once in a wager with death. I'm still ambivilant about life, but I'm more aware of the pain suicide can cause for those left behind. If it had this effect on you, a co-worker, imagine how the family is hurt. I wish you, him, and them peace.
i've done some suicidal-type things. never with any real intent, more the desperate cry for help variety. and that was decades ago, i'm much better now. at the time selfishly i never considered what i'd leave behind. good thing i failed, 'cause that's the most fucked up thing you can do to people around you.
however the best place from which to deal with this, is one of understanding, or at least acceptance. sometimes it is too much.
that being said, there is always help. i plant that seed in my psyche and hope if it's ever that bad for me, i'll remember.
kd, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Hopefully he did do it at work to spare his wife the pain, as misguided as that was.
When my best friend Rob killed himself, he tried to do the same thing. He packed up his entire house first, left instructions and money to pay his taxes and other expenses, left letters for his friends explaining why he did it. He shot himself with his own gun on a jogging path near his house, and made sure he had his ID on him so the police could find his house.
I used to see Rob once a week. We'd watch movies or whatever, and talk about our lives. It sounded like normal griping (girlfriend issues, bored at work, etc.) I had no idea he was planning anything. He went to dinner with each of his friends over that last weekend.
At the funeral, I found out from them that he had told them that talking to me had made him feel better. Unfortunately, I couldn't make him feel good enough to stay alive.
I've had an inordinate amount of friends die (car accidents, skiing accidents, cancer) but for some reason, I still start to cry when I think about Rob, even though I'm sure that's the last thing he would have wanted. I'm glad you decided to stay alive.
I put a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. Damn thing went 'click' and my digestive system filled my pants with shit. There's nothing quite like standing there with a P-38 in your mouth (mmmm...oily) and a hot load in your underwear to disenchant you with suicide. Granted, I don't recommend that particular method...as to why, it was kind of simple for me. I hurt so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't see an end to it. I couldn't think past it. I hated my life and I wanted it to stop. Oddly enough, the attempt purged a good deal of that pain from me. I didn't really care what my supposed friends and family thought anymore, and I didn't hate myself so much for failing to prevent my mom's death. It wasn't anything alien, it was pain. And sometimes pain blinds you to what you are doing, distorts your whole world so it consists entirely of you orbiting your anguish, wanting it to stop more than anything. I didn't worry about what it would do to anyone but me, and I didn't think about how pointless it was to try and hurry the inevitable.
Nowadays, I look back on that day and wonder about that 'click'.
They held the memorial service yesterday for the guy we watched die on the building site behind our office block amongst the concrete pillars and scaffolds within metres of where he landed. All these neat rows of chairs filled with people in sunday blacks all wearing yellow hardhats, some of them wearing the luminous yellow vests.
Turns out he had a heart attack and was dead before he hit the ground.
Typical...
I come to announce my return to net-life and what happens? Someone dies.
I just have this affect on people I suppose.
Thankfully I've never had to witness a suicide, during or aftermath. I once talked a girlfriend down from it however.
the important thing here, Mike, is that you were there, and you recognized the seriousness, and you talked her down.
this is a very important thing. to be there. to help. to say stop. don't do this.
and Ez? so glad you're still here. and D? still awful, no matter.
it's hell to watch people die.
However it's a very difficult thing to do, you know what could happen and you begin to question your ability to stop it even though you desperately want to. It's a very sobering experience.
wow, that was so sad but beautifully, gorgeously written. wow.
Horribly sad story, eloquently told.
this sort of situation often makes me angry and frustrated, and then very guilty for being upset with someone who clearly was in an overwhelming amount of pain. I'm so sorry for his family, and for you too kd.
oh kd, i am so sorry.
Damn kd...
and all of you that commented. I cannot imagine.
I am just lucky I guess. I have been down and out at times, but I have never wanted to die.
Scares me how fragile the mind is.
I don't know any of you...but I DO think it is great that you were able to overcome it, and that you are all still here :O)
Has been a bad day for you, Kd, for all of you there. I'm sure he has found his peace. Wish he had found it differently and elsewhere though.
Ezrael wrote:
"I put a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. Damn thing went 'click'"
Did the same thing. And I'm also still wondering about the click.
Once again, I didn't take the path of reading oldest to newest posts. I read that you had off and wished you a nice day, not even knowing the reason behind why you have off. How sad. It's really too bad. It would have been interesting to have a conversation with him after it was all said and done. I hope he trully is at peace.
Damn, kd! Damn, Matt! Damn, D!
I've seen death. It ain't pretty.
Truth be told the only reason I've never offed myself is this fear that what comes after is even worse. Silly huh?
Well, that and missing a new South Park.
I found your site through Robyn. I am so sorry, this is just so sad...
say-say, it's ok, i know you generally start at the top and read from there -- and all of you, thanks from the bottom of my heart, all the feedback has been just great.
I don't even know what to say. Damn.
I do agree that I think he was trying to send a message to whomever he perceived as persecuting him at work. Otherwise (I'm not making a joke of this in any way) narcotics are as pleasant a way to float off this earth as you can get. A lot easier than hanging from a tree in public.
Foolishly, I've been close to accidental heroin overdose, and you just kind of fade happily away. Luckily, I woke up and realized I was only breathing twice a minute, and that my lips were all blue.
and i'm totally glad he didn't decide to send the message by coming to work and shooting everybody, you know?
What a horrible day for you to go through. I realize you're detached from the situation a bit, but having something like that occur within your workplace, and just yards from where you sit -- well I just cannot imagine. I'm so terribly sorry. I hope he's at peace, and his family will be able to find some in the days ahead.
don't know what to say, but i will share this with anyone who is interested:
this is what i ment to share: my own suicide attempt. when i posted it i predated it by 6 years.. it's actually been less than a year since it happened.. it happened 27 september 2001.
but, i can't imagine dealing with someone's suicide at work of all places.
So sorry kd. Suicide at work is difficult to deal with. A friend of mine went into the men's bathroom at our office on a day when no one was there and shot himself. The office brought in grief counselors to help deal with the trauma but I don't think that any of us will be the same. We all loved him. His family loved him. He didn't love himself enough. I trust that he is no longer in pain--I see him in the elevator sometimes and he looks happy. (yes, I see dead people)
a few years back, I was working as a girl-friday for a small business that lived in the basement of an old, four-story hotel in Santa Barbara. I was merrily typing along when I heard a couple of people trying to talk what I thought was a cat down from a balcony. the basement windows were right in front of my desk, but they were low to the ground outside, so I only saw patent-leather covered feet and what I realized were uniform pants at the same moment I heard two men yell "oh no, don't do that!" the jumper hit the ground right in front of me - her foot nudged through the open window, but the rest of her stayed outside on the pavement, thank the gods. I ran upstairs and outside, hoping she was still alive and I could help (used to work in trauma surgery) and was waved off by one of the policemen until I told him my background. unfortunately, all I could do was assure the rookie cop that, in this particular instance, moving her didn't make a difference - he'd grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over in his panic to do something and you're not supposed to disturb the position of a potential head or spinal injury at the accident site - but she'd jumped from the fourth floor balcony and hit forehead-first, and the front of her skull was completely flattened. apparently she'd called her psychiatrist and her social worker and told them she was going to jump off the Santa Barbara courthouse, then came to our building instead. the newspaper said she was declared DOA by the attending doc at the hospital. I really hope the rookie cop didn't blame himself.
i have to wonder if Steve will haunt my work. that would be interesting.