The Jump
“There are almost twice as many suicides than homicides in the United States in any given year.”
Recently, I e-mailed an old friend – a friend who has drifted in and out of my life for years but nevertheless a good friend that I think of often. More time than usual had passed since I’d last heard from her and I just felt I needed to reach out to her.
Interesting how – if we’re listening – our instincts are usually telling us something…
Her return e-mail held devastating, shocking news. Last August, she told me, she attempted suicide by jumping from the roof of a five-story building. After the initial shock, I found myself with a lot of questions, some big and existential, but some trivial…like – did she leave her keys in her car when she parked it in front of that building? Or eat a special meal right before? Did she dress up for the occasion? Did she leave dirty dishes in the sink? I think I found it easier to focus on those smaller questions than to hear the answers to the really big ones.
Like, how do you get to that place, alone on the roof of a building, ready to jump? I don’t understand. I do believe we all have light and dark, good and evil – it’s how we balance it all. Some of it shines through brighter at different periods of our lives. At that point, her light had dimmed to nothingness – she clearly wanted to die. Yet, she didn’t succeed. Where do you go from that?
