Three suicides in my memory

A long time ago, when I was still in high school, the English teacher’s son killed himself.

He hung himself from a tree in the back yard, using a dog leash.

There are two things that still stick in my memory all these years.

One, the teacher had trouble acknowledging the truth of what happened.  For a long time, she stayed in denial.  She insisted it must have been an “accident”, because she couldn’t accept the fact that he had been suffering enough to make this kind of choice.

Everyone else in the community knew the truth of it, and they were sad and shocked and confused (and whatever other emotions go with that).  I’m not sure if the teacher ever really came to grips with the truth.

Two, I realized I couldn’t talk about how the incident had really made me feel.  The politically correct response, I guess, is to feel horror and pity and disgust and… I don’t know.  Reactions vary.

But the truth is that part of me understood.  I had been going through severe depression myself, (the early miles of a life-long journey), and part of me understood his need for a final release.  I almost envied his position.  He didn’t have to hurt anymore, and he didn’t have to deal with a family who wouldn’t even acknowledge that kind of pain.

Another classmate had killed himself years earlier, when I was in 6th/7th grade… (also by hanging).  I didn’t know him very well, but he was the victim of constant bullying.  People just didn’t understand how that can erode someone down to the core.  Bullying is a slow death.  I’ve experienced it myself.  The fear/anger/injustice is a burning pit, even decades later.

Even my mother didn’t understand when she read about his death in the paper.  She saw that it happened after his team lost a ball game, so she jumped to the superficial conclusion that he must have done it for that simple reason.  (“No,” I wanted to say.  “You don’t get it. It wasn’t just because he lost a ball game.”)

And after I graduated high school, yet another classmate killed himself.  Shot himself, if I remember correctly.  Again, I felt the combination of grief mixed with understanding.  It was like I was the only person who understood that sometimes death feels like a welcome release.

But in our tiny backward little community, no one would dare to admit that.  Contrary viewpoints were quickly shamed and hushed.

So when I hear of celebrities or others that have succumbed to suicide’s gravity these days, I feel that same dual-reaction.  I think “Oh, no… no no no.  Please no.  What an awful thing to happen to someone.”

And, yet, I guiltily see that other half of me… the part that understands.