A friend & suicide

[f_inscreenname]

The wife, I and our two kids were sitting at Friendlys today around 2 o’clock waiting for our order to arrive. The wife’s cell phone rings and she picks up. After a few seconds she has a bad look and gets up from the table and walks out to the lobby area. Now this is nothing new on a Saturday. She works for a big bank running the maintenance and interior remodels for there 22 story building in downtown Baltimore. I just figured that some big wigs office didn’t get the right lamp and she world be off for the rest of the day making sure that big wig didn’t have to use a non matching lamp to read the Monday morning paper. So when she came back to the table I was ready for “ I have to go in to the office and the kids can go with me”, its happened before and I am thinking “cool, boat hide.” But when she gets back she doesn’t say anything. I ask “what’s up?” She says “ We can talk when we get home”. Now I am thinking she doesn’t want to say anything in front of the kids meaning she needs to leave them home with me. Now I have to know. I ask again while the kids are happy just after they got there sodas (there both under 6 so sodas at a restaurant are still a big deal). She looks at me and mouths the word “Franklin” and almost looses it right there. She gets herself back together in less then a second and I feel like I am ready to pass out. My wife is a tough girl and a look like that meant it was not good. <br /> Now we are in our late 30’s and Franklin grew up with my wife and her older brother (by a couple years) and were always best friends. I really think my wife had a crush on him for a while but she would never admit to it and it became a little joke in our marriage. As people do over the years they tend to move away (from NJ). I met my wife in Maryland 7 years ago where we live now and Patrick, my wife’s older brother did his 20 years in the Air Force in New Jersey (always a joke in the family. He joined to see the world, spent a year in Germany and then was stationed 30 miles from his childhood home and stayed there because the Air Force needed him there) but for his last post he went to So Carolina were he retired at. Two weeks ago we had a surprise party for my mother in laws 75th birthday and everybody made there way to NJ for the party. It was like getting the band back together. Franklin brought his new wife that is 6 months pregnant and everyone seemed to have a great time. My wife even made the comment on the way home that they acted like newlyweds and to tease me she said, “I only got a kiss on the cheek goodbye, he must really love this girl”. And as we talked we both came to the conclusion that he was doing OK. Especially after his divorce from his first wife. It was ugly and some of the stuff we herd didn’t seem like they fit the person. Like it was said he was one of those people who wants to know why it took you 15 minuets instead of 10 to get home today, you must have been talking to some guy or girl. My ex-wife was just like that and that is one reason she is my ex. It is a miserable life. Now from what we herd (and that is very little) is Franklin and the new wife had a fight about the late thing and she told him if he didn’t get help they would be divorced also. I am sure some of it was the hormones talking but she is a independent woman with a job as a administrator in NY city so she also could have had enough. I don’t know. I don’t know her well enough after the one meeting. Franklin decides to call his ex-wife and have her pick up his daughter that is over for visitation (his ex was always very good about letting him see her anytime he wanted). The new wife is not home for some reason. Maybe due to the fight or not, I don’t know. After the daughter leaves, Franklin leaves a phone message on the ex’s answer machine, something like “I will be the Angel that watches over the daughter” and hangs up. When the ex hears this she calls his brother and tells him he better check on him. After Franklin makes the phone call he goes out to the garage and ends his life. As I am typing this I have tears running down my face but earlier I was very angry for him hurting my wife. Remember I didn’t know him nearly as much as she did. Through all the time I have known about this (the last 12 hours) I have been mostly confused. How can someone do that?? Now that I am in my late 30’s I have had the idea cross my mind now and then that I may have seen more years then I have left and that bothers me. Sometimes for a day or so, so I try not to think about to often but the though of shorting it by my own hand is just something I cant comprehend. I always thought suicide was a cowardly thing to do (if you didn’t have mental issues). A copout. Now I just feel sorry it has happened for everyone involved and the guy I was drinking beer and cutting it up with two weeks ago is gone. What a F_in mess this is.<br /> I guess all I can ask for from you folks is your prayers and any psychologists that want to donate there time to a widow, her unborn child, a pre teen daughter, two step children, mother, father, 2 brothers, 2 sisters, family, friends, his 5th grade class (did I mention he was a grade school teacher?)……………<br /> Now I am sad again.

 

[Triton II]

Re: A friend & suicide

My thoughts are with you, with your wife and all those affected by this tragedy. Be strong for everyone screenname... by writing what you just wrote you have already shown your strength, others will need it and rely on it. Good luck and take care. <br /><br />Mark.

 

[Reel Poor]

Re: A friend & suicide

What a usless tradgety that solves no problems and only brings on more problems, especially where kids are involved.<br /><br />Sad to here F-in, our thoughts and prayers will be with you and all involved.

 

[Ross J]

Re: A friend & suicide

There's always surprises about people you know. No matter how long you've known them they will often have areas about their lives that don't get talked about or shared with anybody. The reasons for this are numerous, from it being to embarrasing to just plain dumb. from hilariously funny to seriously dark and dank.<br />Peoples personal lives and relationships are thus similar and often the folk closest to them are the ones who don't know all the facts or have all the information. If a relationship is troubled often the extended family are the last to know. if there is serious strain within ones own mind and there's ambivalence about feelings or personal traits then some folk see the only way of stopping the pain to be to die.<br />In todays society failure or thoughts of failure appears to be one of the strongest driving forces towards suicide.<br />Coping with the death is the worst, the fear that you could have done more, the self discipline that keeps us even is upset and the fact that a person has suicided is unacceptable to our thinking.<br />The realisation that their was something going on that we didn't know hurts us and we react in many self depreciating ways to it.<br />Suicide can be used to hurt others, "Take that you *******s, that'll teach you", sort of thinking.<br />It can also be a last ditch attempt to prevent discomfort and pain.<br />Suicide can also be accidental, as in the individual experimenting with the mechanics of suicide and getting carried away with the experiment and going too far.<br />Please don't think of this writing as analysis of your friends situation, it's just heart felt thoughts from a friend who has had a lot to do with people who suicide and attempt to suicide. <br />It's ugly and scarring to the survivors. there's no acceptable explination, one must find ones own way and manner of expressing thoughts and feelings. I think you've done so very well indeed.<br />My thoughts are with you in this time as you move through the grieving process and I pray you don't blame yourself for this happening. There's only one person who makes the decision to suicide and thats not you!<br />Ross

 

[Kenneth Brown]

Re: A friend & suicide

What an excellant response Ross. I'm sure all of us here at one time or another has considered suicide. Sometimes the thought of the life we have now is just unbearable. I thank God that when I was at my worst he gave me the strentgh to carry on.

 

[dogsdad]

Re: A friend & suicide

My condolences to you and yours.<br /><br />I have first hand, intimate knowledge of this experience. You're going to find yourself not wanting to accept this---and so strongly, that it can shake your own sense of self in ways that you have been unable to imagine, up to this point in your life. You may find yourself not wanting to accept your own identity...and I know this first hand. You've got to hang on to yourself.<br /><br />I'll offer a bit of unsolicited advice: learn to accept that "it just is." Focusing on that thought kept me from capsizing entirely over a period of years until I could finally accept the tragedy that occurred in my own life.<br /><br />Hang in there, my friend. <br /><br /><br />-dd-

 

[Nos4r2]

Re: A friend & suicide

Originally posted by Ross J:<br /> one must find ones own way and manner of expressing thoughts and feelings. I think you've done so very well indeed.<br />

Well said Ross. I've lost a 2 friends and another friend lost their mother to suicide. The last one was 8 years ago. It still cuts deep and they are all still in my thoughts but eventually-as said above-you do come to realise that it 'Just is'.<br /><br />Hang in there buddy.

 

[f_inscreenname]

Re: A friend & suicide

Thanks folks for your kind and inspirational words. Services are on Wednesday. I still have a lot to figure out between now and when we all get back together one last time. Something impossible to imagine two weeks ago. <br /> Mark

 

[DJ]

Re: A friend & suicide

I here you.<br /><br />My dad's best freind comitted the same thing. It really affected him-my dad. He saw saw so much death during WWII. He could not understand how a friend, in the same boat, could check out that way. Still does not.<br /> <br />I had two high school freinds follow.<br /><br />I do not understand it.<br /><br />My prayers are with you and yours.

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: A friend & suicide

I've not been quite so near, but near enough to know some of what you are and will be going through. It is a tough time, and like others have said, don't blame yourself or let your wife blame herself. "it just is"<br /><br />My deepest condolences. I wish you the very best.

 

[Vlad D Impeller]

Re: A friend & suicide

I read a magazine article a few weeks ago that featured the alarming rate of suicide in Japan, apparently the trend is to jump in front of commuter trains <br />What a waste

 

[Braxton]

Re: A friend & suicide

im very sadden by your news may God Bless

 

[beezee28]

Re: A friend & suicide

My condolences to your loss of a friend. Only thing that I can say is "Hang in there and don't give up". <br />You might never get the answer to the question "Why did he do it?" but you certainly can value the friendship he gave to you and your wife. Value those thoughts.

 

[snapperbait]

Re: A friend & suicide

F_inscreenname.. I don't have much to offer other than the fact that you and yours will be in my thoughts....

 

[SoulWinner]

Re: A friend & suicide

My best friend in the seventh grade killed himself because his parents were getting divorced. I was asked to be one of bears at his funeral. I declined. I didn't even go to the funeral. I refused to have my last memory of Curtis being his burial. He did it because he idolized his dad who Marine and a Viet Nam vet, and his mother was getting custody. Sad. Curtis, you should have stuck around; you missed so much.<br /><br />My condolenses screenname. Suicide really sucks.

 

[LadyFish]

Re: A friend & suicide

aw geez, this one hits very close to home.<br /><br />First let me extend my deepest condolences to you for your loss.<br /><br />I'm not sure if this will help but I hope in some way it does.<br /><br />I am a suicide survivor. Its not something I generally share, but if it helps people understand what goes through one's mind when you contemplate suicide, then I'm willing to share.<br /><br />There really is a point when things become so unbearable that you can't go on. My quandry was that I felt totally alone with my problems, and those problems seemed enormous and unresolvable at the time. In my case, I asked for help and was called a liar and punished so I suffered in silence for many years. I couldn't come to grasps that this world and all its corruption and evil was where I was meant to be. It wasn't until my 30's that I openly discussed with my siblings what drove me to that point.<br /><br />People who say that its for sympathy, attention or payback have never been where I was. I agree that people who threaten suicide may do it for those reasons but people that actually follow through with it do not for the most part.<br /><br />I was young, and never thought about the long term pain and suffering I would have caused everyone who loved me. I just wanted the pain to end.<br /><br />Afterward I realized how extremely selfish it would have been. And in reality, those problems seem miniscule compared to what I've dealt with since including finding an end to the problem that led me to that horrible place in my mind in the first place.<br /><br />No one really understands the intensity of pain another person suffers internally. <br /><br />I feel for your friend AND everyone who loved him. I'm sure, like me, he just wanted his pain to end. My heart and prayers go out to all of you.

 

[Ross J]

Re: A friend & suicide

Powerful words Ladyfish, thank you very much.<br />Ross

 

[QC]

Re: A friend & suicide

First, my condolences to you, screenname. I have not been very close to something like this, but I'll explain in a minute.<br /><br />Second, LadyFish your courage is inspiring. Thanks. Most of us would hide, but your honesty reminds me that others won't look upon me harshly for my faults. My opinion of you has risen not lowered . . .<br /><br />The closest I have come to this situation ironically enough was on another forum. One of the key contributors committed suicide about two months after 9/11. It turns out that his best friend from college was a pilot on United Flight 93 which crashed in PA. That, apparently, put him over the edge . . . Very bright guy, great career, strong family (luckily no children). Of course, none of us on the forum saw it coming and it probably was the beginning of the end of that group as it is basically defunct now. Very sad, as would be any of these tragedys.

 

[f_inscreenname]

Re: A friend & suicide

Well…. yesterday was one of the hardest days I have ever had to deal with. The faces of the children was almost to hard to take. Grown adults who have buried many family members and friends over the years were reduced to lost souls wondering why and the only advice I could give was what I read here. “It just is”. No one saw it coming. Nobody said “maybe I should have listened that time” or “ I knew he was depressed but I didn’t think he would do that”. It was just as blindsiding to everyone there as it was to me.<br />I have never been to funeral like this before. They are always sad but after the Services everyone meets someplace and eats and celebrates the lost ones life. I think it brings some sort of closure. Yesterday, was nothing like that. It was a very quiet and sad gathering. We ate and some pictures were passed around to update family and friends on who’s been up to what, some small talk but overall it was a very sad room. Lost room. <br />I think the hardest part was looking at my heartbroken wife and not being able to do anything about. Talk about a helpless feeling. When her father passed a few years back (I am sure her biggest loss) just being there and comforting her was what was needed. Everyone knew why he passed. This time no one knew. <br /> The one thing she most wanted to know and me, the guy who figures out and fixes anything I put my mind to had nothing for her in her most time of need. Yea, we talked about “maybes” and “ifs” but as for a answer……………I could do nothing but wonder myself. <br /> I must say that I can not wait until this all passes by like all things do. It is a very uneasy feeling that has settled on me. Nothing feels right in anyway. I have had close family (mother and father) die and it felt nothing like this. <br /> I thank you all in my family’s time of need for your thoughts and advice. I knew you all would come through. <br />Thanks again. <br /> Mark

 

[ndemge]

Re: A friend & suicide

I went through that hardest day of my life over 3 years ago with my best friend, his was accidental, a padle boat, cold water and a thick coat with no PFD at night. He was 22, in college and had just the same, hung out only weeks before. That experience has changed my life forever. The small Sh!t in life doesn't matter. Keep your friends close, you never know when the the next time you say goodbye may be the last for whatever reason. <br /><br />Be it his own cause, or accidental, the hurt is there for everyone that knew them. Your friend and mine are surely having a beer together.