Wednesday, June 11, 2008

About my friend's suicide ...


I'd mentioned back in May some grief over a friend taking his own life. Via another dear friend, I've found a truly sad piece covering his life and death. Way back in high school he and I once had a nasty fist fight, with me carrying a small scar even now on my nose. I think he went to the ER that night yet I went to a doctor a few days later as he'd knocked a contact behind my eye. I recall we fought like gentlemen rather than as the common might.

I can't help but think of this in learning how he handled his death. A touch of class even while doing something I wished he hadn't. He ought to have called me! If only I knew he was so troubled. I've surely been there, perhaps not the point he'd gotten yet surely bent and battered, so I would like to think I'd have been able to help. Another friend, a lawyer back home, took his life a couple of years ago and I felt the same way. Then there's the lawyer down in Chambers County that also killed himself. He'd helped me so much getting started and was the best criminal defense lawyer I've yet to work around.

In the future, if you are my friend, and let's err on the side of "Yes, you are!", please have the decency to talk with me before doing anything so drastic as checking out. Sure, there's a time maybe when maybe that decision will work. But over money? Not hardly!

The image above appeared back in that May post. Better days come. There are cycles to life. I'll now look at these trees for at least the time I'm out here at Fort Lewis and think of my friends. But I'll still miss them and wish they were here. John Gunn

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