SUICIDE

Suicide kills not just the person who kills him or herself.

The person is found. Sometimes there is a note;

sometimes there isn’t. Ugh. Ugly. Horror. Mess.

Help! Scream! Now what? What now?

The blood flows onto the floor: the tile, the wood,

or the rug - then down through the floorboards -

down into the basement where the next generation

lives. Suicide seeps down deep, so down, down, deep.

Blood - dark red blood is its color. After that

suicide is very difficult to explain.  Words are tried.

Words are blurted out with tears - with closed fists -

along with guilt and, “Why didn’t I talk to him - to her?”

“Why didn’t - she - he -  know I would try to understand

or be a shelter - a hiding place - a chair of comfort?

With suicide along come words and feelings: anger,

depression, wanting to disappear - failure, mistakes -

guilt, shame, hurt, hatred. With suicide sometimes

there is just silence. Sometimes we have no words.

We have no idea what happened. It’s hard to form

and sculpt questions made of barbed wire or venom

or what have you. There is so much of the unknown.

Or maybe their mind was mixed up because of drugs

or medicine. Sometimes that warning is on the side

of the bottle. Suicide can be  a side effect - that

nobody picked up on - and the person killed themselves -

with a brain gone confused. Too bad the label wasn’t

on a face - but it’s always too, too late - after the jump

or the rope or the gun or the pills or the poison.

It’s not a relief, but we certainly are more understanding

or sympathetic about suicide than 100 years ago.

Yes, people kill themselves. Yes, people don’t want

to face the future with a sickness or a guilt or an

anger or a hatred stabbing their heart or wrists.

I once saw a man shoot himself in the mouth -

in a cemetery near Covington, Louisiana. This

happened in the same burial place as Walker Percy -

who wrote and thought deeply about suicide -

having had several people in his family kill themselves.

It was just the two of us - in the early morning quiet.

I didn’t know the man. I thought it was good

that he was standing under a stone statue

of the Blessed Mother. As I walked towards him -

now just 30 yards away from me - he put the gun

in his mouth. I was shocked as I heard the shot
and watched him fall to the ground.

I have always wished he saw me instead of

the stone statue above him. I wish he would

have hesitated. I don’t know what his wife

and kids went through before and after

the horror. I don’t know. I still don’t know.

I always hoped the Gospels would have a story

that Judas dropped the rope below the tree

he hung himself on and he came running to Jesus'

tree and fell on the ground before Jesus and
Judas would have heard an eight word from the cross

that would have helped him and people ever since

who have wanted to kill themselves. Amen.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2012

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Painting on top: Suicide by Eduard Manet