All the suicides that have touched me were note-less, so I have no hard evidence of what they were thinking in those final moments. I imagine they were in constant pain (mental, emotional or physical) and feeling without hope or meaning or support or understanding, and that either there was no one who would care or, by then they didn't really care if there was someone or not.

My fifth year teaching, one of my colleagues put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was a priest on sabbatical from being a priest with a brilliant, (mildly) narcissistic mind working in a mediocre public school populated by unmotivated students with parents who occasionally did their children's assignments and then wondered how they could possibly have gotten an F...

He taught history. He was finishing up his third year which he taught by way of endless movies and profound monologues given in the dark as he sat in the reclining chair he'd installed in his classroom, with a background of loud classical music that could be heard by all the classrooms in his wing...

The day before we had to deal with grieving, traumatized teenagers, he and I had had a lively conversation in the copy room about the upcoming summer and how he was going to teach summer school and how much he was not looking forward to that, but he was anticipating some good reads.

But, apparently, he was actually contemplating an abrupt end to his story, not just a chapter.

He left no note, and at the funeral attended by students, parents, teachers and his priestly colleagues, it was reiterated by his bishop ad nauseum that he did not take his own life.

That, and the myriad gushing comments about a man he wasn't did leave me wondering if it were the twilight zone.

I really don't know why he took his own life when he did. I don't know why that moment was any worse than any day prior. I guess there was a straw no one else knew about.

Alternatively, after flipping off the admistration and his colleagues for a year, maybe this was the biggest flip off of them all. I could see him thinking that.

The following year, a student of mine hung himself one night at his father's place of business. He had a terminal illness but his parents had always kept the terminal aspect from him. He was in biology class when he found out he was going to die sooner rather than later. He confronted his parents. What could they say to make it all right? Nothing. He left no note but taking his life put the "when" in his hands... and doing it at his father's place of business was a very loud message, I think.

The next year a sweet, sad student took an inordinate amount of some illegal substance and freed himself from a lifetime of melancholy. No note left behind, just many grieving, broken hearts.

A few years ago, I had lunch with a former student to catch up. After spending almost every afternoon with me for detention (to do his homework), and barely graduating, he turned his life around, went to college, became an accountant and was working for Delotitte. We chatted about former classmates and I asked about one of my first students who was forever angry and full of attitude, but if you cared to look, with a soft, sad heart. She'd moved to Florida at 16 and became a model. His smile faded as he informed me that she had commited suicide at 21.

Turns out, it was the same year as the sad, sweet young man above.

I don't know if she left a note. I don't know why she picked the day she did, what made living a moment longer unbearable. I wish she'd had a reason to stay.

I wish they'd all found one reason to stay.

There's always a chance tomorrow will be better.

Until there are no more tomorrows.

Suicide takes effort.

I planned my suicide for a week before I actually attempted it. I had to put on a mask for everyone around me, to laugh and joke so that no could see that I was planning my death. I googled urns and cremation services so I could make sure I could afford to pay for my funeral expenses with the meager money I had saved up. I wrote and rewrote notes. I planned out what I would use, where I would do it, how I would avoid being caught. I looked forward to 11/10/22, counted down the hours with delicious anticipation. I was delighted. It was finally ending.

I was tricking myself with adrenaline.

My nights were spent reasoning with myself instead of sleeping. I kept telling myself, there's no other way. This is the best option. This is the only option. Suicide was the light at the end of my tunnel vision.

And then I survived.

The suicidal thoughts have not gone away. Every day I regret that I didn't take that step. The week after was spent in a state of constant panic and mania, the simultaneous thrill and shame of being alive. And then I had to force myself to get up and keep functioning. Because, unfortunately for me, I was not dead.

Suicide is different for everyone. Having never actually died, I cannot say what exactly goes through the mind of someone who commits suicide. But having attempted suicide, having stood on that ledge and looked death in the face with a smile, I can tell you the one thing we all have in common: irrationality. Because our lives, our minds, have driven us crazy. One tiny mistake is enough to deserve death. Every day that we stay alive is another reason to end it all. Before the body can die, rationality must be killed. The mind commits suicide long before the person does.

Has my mind committed suicide?

Maybe. Maybe not. But I haven't yet. And I suppose that's progress.

Considering too many scenarios,

Hating myself in the middle,

Trauma telling me to jump,

Thinking of how the world is falling apart,

Did I deserve to live?

I relived all of my mistakes,

Another nail in the coffin that my pain was becoming,

You see nothing when those words come calling,

Not family, not love, not beauty,

Just the devil trying to make you think,

That your life is worth nothing,

It's deeper than depression,

The war between hell and heaven,

Between the shadow and the consciousness within,

Something about the end,

Felt comforting when torturous thoughts came in,

But good will win,

In my heart I always had the strength,

To pull back and start again.

My uncle shot himself in the mouth with a shot gun blowing out the backside of his head when I was in the second grade. At the funeral, his widow, passed around a note he left that simply said, “Say hi to the folks.” That didn’t explain much, especially to a seven year old kid who didn’t even know people didn’t routinely die in this way.

No one seemed surprised. There were many less tears then at the only other funeral I attended for my maternal grandfather, who was the beloved groundskeeper for the University of Chicago but more hushed whispers. Less extravagant sprays of gladiolus, more black coffee with openly hidden shots of my grandfather’s honey-based home brew served in porcelain cups with saucers so that the sound of spoons tinging often broke up the wisps of tense conversation.

That and me approached by a tall red-haired man who bent over and asked my if I had seen Uncle Red. I had never met my uncle only over heard the story of how my mom, heavily pregnant with my brother before me had to attend court to have him him committed by a judge because my father had to go to work to make money to afford their first child. The man persisted. Asking me again, knelling his bright flushed cheeks and hot honey breath in my face, “But have you seen your Uncle Red?”

”No. I never met him.” I glanced at my mother, feeling her disapproval.

Suddenly, the man grabbed me by the waist hoisting my in the air saying, “I’m your Uncle Red.”

It was then I giggled, being seven and having no other coping skills. I was dragged out swiftly by one arm and spanked in the bright spring Chicago south side alley smelling of earthworms and new fallen rain.

I never knew why my uncle did it. My brother and I did the unthinkable back at his house after services when our aunt suggested we, the only children present, go into the kitchen for cookies. My brother knew the door to the basement was there and he pulled me hallway down the stairs with him just to have a look. The chair my uncle had drug down from the living room there with the back blown away. Someone had tried to clean up the mess on the wall. Someone else had drawn a skull in white chalk where the bullet had ricocheted off the concrete block wall.

I remembered the chair, one of a pair brand new expensive, just three weeks before when we had sat on he floor with our uncle as he recorded our voices on some machine with a wire and played it back and we all laughed at the sound of our own voices.

My Uncle Red killed himself decades later. Committed for life in the Colorado State Institute, when such a thing existed, he got just plain tired of the staff complaining about him hiding the pills they gave him instead of taking them, so took his whole stash at once just to show them all he could control his destiny.

I suppose Uncle John was showing someone he could also have his own way with life.

It has been shown in scientific studies that suicide runs in families with or without diagnosed Axis I and II mental disorders. Perhaps it just becomes a normalized coping skill especially when learned as a child and reacted to as something not so much out of the ordinary. I supposed I’ll never really know until I reach the point I have the pressing need to show someone that I have control over my destiny and, as I have been taught, that I too can have my own way with life.

Sadness

Despair

loneliness

memories

regrets

how to carry it out

pain

sorrow

disillusion

self loathing

a way out

Thoughts taunt is constant

Hell embodies the waking world

Each thing faded from opalescent

Bleached by tainted truths unfurled

Understanding the demands but

Letting go seems the better way

Life won't cope with me around

Exit of this corporeal plane found

To be a pleasantry for I maintain its

more

peaceful

underground.

There was a small four chest of drawers beside my desk filled with things that are considered trash in my mom's eye. Although, it's really just differently labeled garbage.

In one of the layers on that drawer, a notebook was hidden among other notebooks and papers.

It was used as a list, maybe a reminder, a documentary, or it could have been a proof. That surely I was still sane.

Yes, it could still be perceived that my thoughts written on that notebook with a much degree of organized words can be considered written by a sane person.

Or was it?

Was my sanity during those times just an illusion?

The first page was left blank on purpose.

Followed by a bible verse on the second.

I couldn't remember what was written even though I chose which verse it was.

That notebook was supposed to be used as my bible journal, as I was once what we called a 'servant of the Lord', which was left unused and forgotten.

Until I started using it, then writing how many attempts I tried ending my life.

When it reached the fifth attempt, I stopped recording it.

On my garbage-filled desk, there was a plastic rack organizer. Pens, pencils, markers, paintbrush, anything that are used for writing and coloring are gathered there. Journals and sketchbooks that I didn't have time to hide inside the drawer are left in the open.

And within those seemingly disorganized things, a small pink cutter blade, which I once bought in an art store, can be found. It was bought for the purpose of not using it as an art material.

My attempts weren't severe enough to make me lose consciousness and wake up on a hospital bed the next day. It was just small cuts added everyday.

Before I could even make a deep cut, my head started ringing some warning bells.

"You shouldn't do it."

"Let's make it look like an accident."

"No, let's just do it!"

"The blade is too small, use the knife hidden on the cabinet."

"Just die already!"

"Start counting!"

3

2

1

There were only several small cuts.

Somehow, it became a habit. Self-inflict became a part of my breakdowns.

Every time I felt suffocated by my own existence, I would end up bashing my head on my bedroom wall, choking myself, and doing things that made me feel pain. Which was an indication to me that I'm alive. I'm still alive.

I suddenly wanted to be noticed by someone. Someone who would notice those several wounds on my wrist during the time I was in the church.

Or during dinner, eating with the whole family.

Someone.

The cuts are basically noticeable, how come no one noticed?

Someone.

"Aren't you just seeking attention by doing that?"

"We should just die quietly."

"What have you been waiting for this whole time? No one's gonna come."

"Wake up! No one noticed because you're worthless"

"Why am I worthless?"

"Should I just die right now?"

"But we have to make a plan! Let's make it look like an accident!"

I was ready at some point. There were a lot of different ways, from suffocation to car accident. From poison to using a shotgun.

I had it all planned. Executing it was the hardest part.

"Am I still sane?"

I suddenly started wondering.

Then that year came like an earthquake, shaking me through the core.

My grandfather died.

November 11,2021.

That's when I started noticing my depression.

I didn't know I was depressed.

I wasn't entirely aware of my own emotions.

I became desperate at some point.

Something within me cracked and I stopped functioning properly. All that was left was a void and I grew tired of breathing each day. Memories became so blurry that I couldn't remember anything but laying on my bed.

How can someone who's suicidal not notice that they're depressed?!

"Just die"

"Stop breathing already"

"Let's die before Christmas"

"No shit! It's almost New Year! I thought we had it all planned?!"

"Let's die on New Year then!"

"How come you're not dead yet?!"

I failed.

Within all of these voices, something was stopping me.

I couldn't do it.

I suddenly felt calm deciding my own death, giving random reasons like saving up money for my own funeral expenses.

Then finally persuading myself to give myself time.

"Hey... Let's just have another year. Just another year would be enough to decide again. Just one more year, okay?"

Another year passed by.

And I'm still persuading myself for one more year.

Let's have another year again.

Just one more year.

He thinks of these thoughts,

now resolute, thereafter he says,

"Tonight, I'll drink with the guys and girls, and party all night long. Till late at night,

I'll return home.

Sometime after midnight, or early morning the next day, he slowly staggers home.

The smiling face, happy facade

quickly drifting away.

"Today, I'll do it. I'm much too

stressed to go on living."

He tells himself, upon arriving home. With a rope and knife

prepared in the dark, his life

reaches an end.

Why did he have a knife in his hand, you ask?

It's 'cause he actually didn't want to die, that he took the

knife with him to try to cut

the rope at the last second.

The thing is, even though he

didn't actually want death, he chose it. Woe to his young

wife and beautiful children.

I didn't actually know the

young fellow but some time

just before he died, I saw him.

I remembered him and it hurt.

Though, we couldn't bring him

back, I wish someone had seen

through his facade and stopped

to look beyond his fake smile.

Gave him a hug and sat to talk

with him, let him spill all about

his troubles and worries,

then tell him:

Friend, Jesus loves you and He

saves, rest all your burden on him. He'll make your smile

genuine again, or like before

never before, and inform you

that you are capable of winning

over the struggles of life with

his help.

Since I or anyone else can't do for him that which I wish,

I'll have to keep his beautiful

wife and young children

always in my prayer.

Crying, I scratch "it isn't your fault" on a crumbled, tear soaked paper from an old school binder. Maybe if I had more time, things would have worked out? Maybe in another life, but this life is too much. I continued scrawling goodbyes on a page, then I remembered, no one is going to care to even read it. I'm ending it all for the good of the people.

Once the deed was done, the town held a memorial in his honor. The chess club he was in had a uniform made in his honor and retired his number. His obituary reached the whole community and brought families closer together. Mental health became the priority it should have been. The funeral was a celebration of life celebrated by classmates, family and friends, sharing their favorite moments and memories with him.

Though he wasn't with us, he made us realize the signs we missed when he was with us. We made a mistake, but we don't blame ourselves. We learn what goes through their mind and offer help and listen when they talk.

I've often wondered

I know it wasn't a bullet

for any of you

A van for a father

lost

An exhaust pipe for the brother next

crying in the wilderness

Even Guinness agog with the sister

ten 26ers deep in a row

And finally, the mother defiant

screaming at the inequity

did you want

a take back?

a do-over?

I'm pretty sure one of you was smiling.