Sunday, August 03, 2008 Lim: Heartbreak By Melanie T. Lim Wide Awake
SOMEONE I met 22 years ago has hanged himself.
I met him only once but my impression of him from two decades back remains crystal clear to this day. He seemed like a person who kept a lot of things bottled up inside.
His death is a tragedy and especially to his family who say they have no idea why he killed himself. Some surmise it can’t be about money as he just started work at a private law firm that paid him handsomely. Well, I have no doubt in my mind that it was not about money.
Rarely do people kill themselves over money. Although there are a few people who kill themselves over debt, most people kill themselves over despair. It's not all about the money, you know. In fact, statistics show that financially-forward countries have a greater rate of suicide than economically-depressed countries where homicide is the greater killer.
Often, it’s the feeling of abandonment that drives people to take their lives. Sometimes it’s the inability to express one’s feelings and to find someone who can empathize with those feelings that can cause depression and drive someone to self-destruction.
Suicide is not solely an emotional decision. It is also an intellectual one. Those who over-think are the likely candidates for self-destruction. Those who think little, after all, cannot contemplate suicide. And the decision to kill one’s self is rarely an overnight decision.
The wound festers for a very long time before it becomes unbearable.
Life is cruel, painful, unjust. And yet, despite their pain, why do some people manage to find meaning in their lives and live happily no matter what? Why are some people, on the other hand, unable to endure and thus give up? Why are some people capable of keeping their sanity while others lose it altogether? Why do some people survive while others do not?
Suicide is the last recourse of those who have lost the capacity to be happy or sane.
No one can make us happy and therefore, we must strive to find the well within us from which happiness springs. No one can keep us sane and therefore, we must strive to cherish the sense of sanity that allows us to sift through the chaos and survive.
Some people are never able to conquer the demons from their past. Some people are never able to come to terms with that which makes them unhappy. Some people no longer find a reason to live because everyone who matter has abandoned them.
Sometimes, people feel unloved, unappreciated, unwanted. They see no hope. They find no help. They see no other recourse to end their agony. In death, they send a message to the living: their pain was real. It may not have been felt, heard or understood but it was real.
A corpse should not have to be the body of evidence of such heartbreak. No matter how much love we have in our hearts—-for ourselves and for others, only God can truly sustain us.
Wherever you are, I pray that you have finally found the peace that eluded you in your life.
