Suicide

I got an email this morning from St. Anselm of Canterbury, the Episcopal church that I was planning on going to, this email informed me that the chaplain of the church was dead - it appeared to be from suicide. They found him in a field, he had a wife and children. I'm still planning on going to this church, obviously it will be full of pain, but I believe that God has put me in this situation for a reason... not that I'm going to go there and heal everybody, I'll probably wait to go there for a couple of weeks while people can mourn for their pastor, but I don't know, it just seems to me to be someplace that God is leading me to.

My dad died April 16, 2003, 6 days after my 27 birthday. About 4 to 5 weeks after that one of my best friends from high school, Chris, called me up and left a message, in the message it said that it was very important that I call Chris back. Now I hadn't talked to Chris for about 2 1/2 years, and we had only talked about 4 or 5 times since I had gone off to college. Chris got married when he was 18 and his wife was 17 - they eloped. So when I got Chris' message I thought that he was in some type of legal trouble, because he was a gun dealer. I came to find out that Chris' wife had left him, so I drove over to his house right away to talk to him. He shared with me many of the details of his marriage. Chris was wearing the tuxedo that he had been married in. We prayed together and talked for a while, discussing many matters of faith. Chris wanted to know that things would be fine in a short while, and I couldn't promise him that. Many other preachers or ministers might have done so, but I knew that I didn't want to give him false hope and I told him that things would get better, but it would take time. I told Chris that I would call him and we would hang out more. I called Chris that weekend, I never got a hold of him but he left a message on my machine that he was "ok." I shortly thereafter went out of town, when I returned my mom told me that Chris had committed suicide. When he was served with his divorce papers, he went to his house knowing that his soon to be ex-wife would soon be there and shot himself in the head. My mom told me that the day after I had talked to him he attempted to commit suicide by turning on the ignition in his car while he was in the garage, but his sister had come over to check on him, and found him in the garage passed out.

All I could remember thinking that night that my mom told me that Chris committed suicide is that: "Chris lied to me, he wasn't ok."

There is nothing more selfish that anyone can do than to commit suicide. I realize that people fall into despair so deep that they think they will never recover, but the people that suffer are the friends and family members of the person who commits suicide.

This last year and a half 4 people that I've been close to have died, my dad, Chris, my brother, and someone whom I considered a second mom. Although, I'll always regret that my brother died, and his death caused me the most pain - and always will - Chris' death was the worst, because I've always wondered what I could have said differently to prevent it. In the end I realize that there is nothing I could have said differently to stop him, but I still second guess myself - I always will. Getting that email from St. Anselm of Canterbury Church, brought many of the same emotions to the surface I had after Chris died. Mostly emotions of feeling cheated and robbed of a good friend, realizing that the world would be a darker and lonlier place without Chris in it.