Rest in peace, my sweet boy, may your horror be over
Jimmy has killed himself. The boy I first met when we were 11-year-olds at school, the teenager I went to soccer games with, the young man I admired, then the adult who would cry like a baby when I telephoned him, finally said his goodbyes and put an end to his suffering.
I will miss him very much indeed, but I will never, ever blame him. I have no right to claim that judgmental ground and to do so would be not only arrogant but also so uncaring and so horribly cruel.
There was a time when I could never understand how life could be so painful that death would seem preferable. But we grow up, we learn, we mature and we put away childish things. Jimmy seemed so accomplished to those who met him casually, so attractive and clever. But those of us who had seen the hidden gift that was Jimmy unwrapped saw the biting, sadistic depression at work, knew of the endless struggles with medication, doctors and therapy.
Some of our mutual friends have written to me in shock. He was, they’ve said, so brilliant and funny and successful. Why didn’t he think of the positive before giving in to the negative? I don’t want to sound bitter, but that is such a callow, shallow misunderstanding of the all-embracing hell of depression. When the lights are turned off there is nothing but darkness. The alternative to the pain is not less pain but no pain, and in the end, the effort was simply too exhausting and the daily anguish too much to tolerate.
In his final letter, Jimmy apologized for what he was about to do and asked forgiveness for any problems that he might cause. When I heard about that I wept. Kindness and concern for others even in the end times. But then those final moments are, they say, liberating and suddenly clean.
We can’t fully understand suicide because such terror is by its nature beyond the understanding of the mentally healthy person.
But anyone who has spent time with those experiencing what is far more common than many might believe can gain at least a glimpse of the drowning mud that is mental illness.
I remember a neighbour, a gentle and innocent man dented by paranoid schizophrenia, sitting in my home and physically moving his head in reaction to noises he was hearing that had not actually occurred.
They were as real to him as his hands or feet. He indeed has a beautiful mind, but life is not a movie.
In many ways mental illness is worse than most physical ailments. We know how to fix a broken limb or heal most diseases, but even when we know what obscures and scrambles the mind we are often incapable of doing very much about it. A new generation of drugs has enabled psychiatrists and doctors, but they still fight the battle terribly underarmed.
Jimmy had tried everything, and he’d mentioned suicide before, even joked about it.
He was raised Roman Catholic and knew that his church once believed suicide so heinous they denied those who took their own lives a Christian burial.
Catholic author G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men. As far as he is concerned he wipes out the world.” Such a crass interpretation of humanity and such a Godless condemnation of those in agony is genuinely staggering.
Times, thank God, have changed. Or are at least changing.
But psychiatric care is shamefully underfunded, societal attitudes are still outdated and outreach and empathy progressing far too slowly. In the final analysis as individuals what we can do and what we must do is to be present, to listen, to care and to love.
Perhaps I am wrong to think and say this but damn it: Jimmy, I am happy that there will be no more horror for you, my friend. Rest in peace, my sweet boy. Rest.
In his final letter Jimmy apologized for what he was about to do and asked forgiveness for any problems that he might cause