Photoessay #2908 - Survivors of Suicide

I'm trying to remember the year, 1998?

In that year, a neighbor committed suicide.  He jumped off the Aurora Bridge with a note in his pocket indicating where he had hidden his bicycle.  He loved doing things with the kids, always organizing basketball games and taking them bowling.

I saw him the evening before.  We had been collecting toilet paper rolls for some craft project.  He came over and gave us a bag of them.  I noticed something in his face.  Some deeper wrinkle around his eyes, maybe a sorrowful look in his eyes.  I definitely could see something.

Why?  mmmm, I heard some rumors but nothing that terrible.  No, it didn't have to do with abuse of the neighborhood kids.  Those kids are all grown now, many families have left this once very cohesive neighborhood.  Now there are new families moving in with small children.

But it hit them all hard, really hard.  I was very angry with him.  How could he hurt these kids, hurt them so profoundly.  How could he do that???  I knew how much he cared about them.  I started reading about suicide, how, to the suicide, there is no other way to ease their pain.  Like a tunnel, only one thing you can do.

 One boy in the neighborhood, maybe in sixth grade.  He said "I can't believe he did that before the last Sienfeld!"  He meant that he and this neighbor had plans for watching the last Sienfeld.  They were going to have big bowl of popcorn, maybe some other kids over.  Remember the big deal of the last Sienfeld?  That's how I got the correct year.

The neighbor took one of his bowling trophies and taped a new label on it for the neighborhood HORSE game (basketball shooting).  The kid who won got to keep the trophy until the next time.  Susanna almost always won.  She had that trophy for a long time, I think she finally did manage to get rid of it.

For my youngest, (9 years old) the intentionality disturbed her the most.  For my oldest (16 and in the midst of his acting out period), his reaction to another neighbor selling their house was "Of course, they are moving, who would want to live in a neighborhood where somebody did something like that!"

Nobody was immune from the shock.   Never to be forgotten.

Last night, somebody shared with me their story of a suicide of somebody close to them.  So this morning I remember all of this.

Picture from an article from wellcomons.com based in Kansas.  Used without permission.