WHEN YOU KILL YOURSELF

February 17, 1994
In Memoriam

"Man awaits his death dreading and hoping all."
                                 William Butler Yeats - Death

Do we await death dreading and hoping all? I believe we do, mostly silently and alone.

Twenty-five years ago today I was a junior at Saint Leo College. And on that day, Monday
February 17, 1969, Anne Riley Bennett sat silently and alone on the banks of the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida.

A gun was in her right hand. She put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger, the gun misfired. She aimed towards the river, pulled the trigger and the gun fired. With the gun back beside her head, she pulled the trigger and again the gun misfired.

Quickly, she pulled the trigger again, instant death!  And for me the beginning of a lifetime of regret and sorrow.

A month later on Saint Patrick's Day, I attempted suicide for the first time. After drinking a pint of cheap whiskey and a six-pack of beer, I downed a bottle of Tylenol. In the morning I awoke to a day of hellish misery - sick to my stomach and with an excruciating hangover.

So much for Tylenol's claim of being a pain reliever.

Suicide first invaded my life a little over a decade earlier, when my grandfather, George Frawley, silently and alone, killed himself in the woods - across the street from where he lived. Thus began a lifetime of wondering why?

Suicide has been my companion ever since - like my shadow, not always visible but always there.

This morning I went to Mass for Anne. Rarely does a day pass that I don't think of Anne and my grandfather or say a prayer for them. Today, they are missed - their memory and image will remain with me until, I, too, am gone. Then we will all be forgotten forever.

And the suicide bond that binds us will finally be laid to rest.

I believe that if Anne had never killed herself, I never would have met Mimi or Maggie. The chain of events that began with Anne's death, leads me to where I am this very minute - about to get divorced from Maggie..

A few days before coming home from on December 12th, I called Maggie to ask where would be the best place for her to pick me up when I got home - and bang, like a gun shot, she tells me she wants a divorce and not to come home - over the fuckin' phone for godsakes!

   Since coming home on December 12th, my life's been a nightmare. Never have I seen such anger and hate in one person as Maggie has for me - without warning, so out of the blue. I have accepted the fact that we are divorcing, but I'll never understand nor comprehend the violent hatred she has towards me. I've known her for almost 14 years and never once did I ever see her so angry, so hateful, so vengeful as she has been these past two months.

And I have yet to find out the real reasons why she wants s divorce. Every time I've asked her, she yells, "Irreconcilable differences!" - and when I've asked what the differences are, she yells, "Everything!"

We've had that bitter but brief conversation about a dozen times, same questions, same answers. A week ago I asked my lawyer if maybe he could get the real reasons from Maggie's lawyer - and for $150.00 per hour he came back the same two answers, irreconcilable differences and everything - although in a much calmer voice and in a more pleasant manner. And he tells me that $150.00  an hour, he's giving me a deal. Go figure! He's Chatham's very own Sherlock the Shyster!

Last night and this afternoon I read the "self-help" and "do-it-yourself" suicide book, Final Exit. I learned something very important, one of the secrets to a successful suicide by drugs and alcohol, is to take a couple of dramamine about an  hour before hand. That I'll do!

Time is closing in. Two weeks from tomorrow I must be out of the house for good. No more Maggie, no more Andy the dog, no more Yoyo the cat.

And no more Tom, for he will be on his own to die silently and alone.

8:15pm       -     - Eldredge Library     -     Chatham, MA

contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com