Three Lives Ended Too Soon - A Suicide Story
Tyler Patton - You Will Be Missed
Why?
Yesterday was Easter Sunday. It is supposed to be a day of celebrating the resurrection of Christ. It is supposed to be a happy day. A day with family and friends and children hunting Easter eggs.
But yesterday was different. A sad, handsome young man decided that life was no longer worth living. I didn’t know him very well. He was a friend of my niece. I met him once and was very impressed by what a polite, caring young man he was. He “friended” me on Facebook. I could tell by the comments he made and the comments made to him from his friends, he was a good man. He loved his friends and his friends loved him. It seemed that he had it all. But for some reason, he didn’t believe that. I don’t try to pretend that I had any idea what was really going on with him, because I didn’t know him that well.
About a year ago, a sad, middle-aged woman decided the same thing. Her son had died in a freak accident the year before. Her daughter-in-law decided for some reason that she couldn’t share her young boys with their grandparents any longer. Maybe it was too painful. Maybe it was another reason. Again, I don’t pretend to know all of the answers. I wasn’t involved in the day to day lives of these women. All I know that on one fateful day, the grandmother decided that life wasn’t worth living anymore.
A few years ago, a father had finally had enough. Two of his three children had severe mental illnesses. His wife was about to leave him. His daughter was fifteen and pregnant. He had just found out that he was about to lose his job. He felt that he didn’t have anyone to talk to. He felt that he didn’t have any friends. I didn’t know what was really going on. I only knew what I heard. He decided that life wasn’t worth living anymore.
All three of these stories have one thing in common. Besides all being wonderfully, awesome people, they all felt that there was no one that they could turn to. No one to listen to their problems. They felt as if there was no one that they could trust enough to tell their deep, dark secrets to. They didn’t feel like they could talk to their families or friends. For whatever reason, they felt hopeless and alone.
I am not a psychologist or therapist of any kind. I don’t know any secrets that could solve any of these issues. I am no expert. I don’t know if anything could have stopped any of these untimely deaths. From all outward appearances these people seemed happy enough to most people. Probably the only ones that knew they were hurting were those that were the closest to them – and maybe not even those knew.
These people that ended their own lives were not close to me. I knew them, but they were not my closest friends or my family. But they were people. They were people who needed something and didn’t know how to get it. They were people that, for whatever reason, decided that life was not worth living…
