For The Heart Cries

I can write with confidence that there are only a few people in the world who know more about suicide than I do.  Suicide is a shadow that has been following me since I was eleven years old - maybe not always visible but always there. When I was eleven my grandfather, who I saw every day, committed suicide.  Almost twelve years later my college girlfriend killed herself. Over the decades since I have lost relatives and friends, neighbors and acquaintances to suicide. Thus I know the tragic effects suicide has on family and friends. Suicide tears people apart and leaves wounds that never heal, breaks hearts that never mend and fills the mind with questions that are never answered. I have been there. I have attempted suicide three times - and there is no medical reason why I survived my third attempt. As a result I am fully aware of the black hole depression and despair can create in a person, a black hole from which a person feels there is no escape - and realizin...

An Afterwards... and in the end                                                                             In the months leading up to my suicide attempt, I spent a lot of time in churches in Florida and in Ireland as well as on Cape Cod - praying, thinking and writing. Without realizing it, beneath all the words of my prayers and all the words I wrote in my journal towards suicide, somewhere below the surface of my subconscious I was hoping and begging for a miracle - for something miraculous or magical to take place that would change my life for the better and thus prevent the events of May 15, 1994 from taking place. But nothing happened and nothing changed. And on May 15th I sought death willingly and willfully. But as I laid dying, in a coma and hooked up to life support, my body so...

February 17, 1995 You are not a failure unless you think failure is final. Failure is only a signpost. It tells you that you're going in the wrong direction. You've got to go in a new direction. Failure is not necessarily a dead end."                                                         Jean Mayer - former President of Tufts University A year has passed since I began this chronicle as a journal towards suicide - a vagabond's wanderings and ramblings toward death. It was Ash Wednesday and as I wrote the words, "Remember man that you are dust," I expected to be dead exactly three months hence - beginning the transformation from flesh to dust. But I escaped death and in being spared I have been forced to examine my life - and all its past sequences and consequences. And in so doing, I have recognized and acknowledged the harm and damage to my ...

February 16, 1995 "Until you know that life is interesting, and find it so, you haven't found you soul."                                            Geoffrey Fisher  -  Archbishop of Canterbury A few hours ago at the Samaritans meeting, I had an epiphany - a life altering experience that cleansed my soul and enlightened my mind. At this time nine months ago I was in the I.C.U. of Cape Cod Hospital, hooked up to life support systems and monitors - tubes and wiring all over my body. Machines were keeping me alive and I wasn't expected to live through the night. And now, tonight, I discovered a renewed interest in life - a  new purpose for living. Although there is no medical reason why I am alive, I have spent the last nine months often wondering why I survived my lethal dose of drugs? Was it fate? Was it God's will? Was it divine intervention by a special su...

February 10, 1995 "You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."                                                                        A Bulgarian Proverb It is often said the the hardest lesson in life and the toughest question to answer are which bridges to burn and which to cross - what to hold onto, what to leave behind? During the past year I have encountered a series of bridges, some I crossed, others I burned. I cannot say with certainty if I walked with the devil or not, but do know that the demons of depression and despair were often my guides. I have no regrets! To imply otherwise would mean I could have done things differently, that I could have modified my behavior and changed directions - that I had choices. But once I decided to kill...

February 3, 1995 Feast of Saint Blaise "A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile...February made me shiver, with every paper I deliver. Bad news on the doorstep...something touched me deep inside, the day the music died."                                                              Don Mclean   -   American Pie Today's the day the music died, a long, long time ago. On this night in 1959 a plane crashed in a snow covered field in Clear Lake, Iowa - killing Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. I was in the eighth grade at Saint Gregory's in Boston and the following morning at recess the news spread, there were tears in the school yard - girls cried and were comforted by the nuns. There were no tears in my eyes but there was sorrow in my heart. Buddy ...

January 31, 1995 "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart...who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."                                                   Carl Jung  -  Letters, Volume I For most of my life I have looked outward and dreamed, fantasies of a life that never was nor will ever be - unrealistic images of a life I would never live nor could live. These dreams were always haunted by demons from the past that were always part of the present. Since my hospitalization I have been forced to look inward and confront these demons - which is something I have never done before. The suicides of Anne and my grandfather were deaths that shattered my soul and damaged my spirit. Their deaths shocked my psyche and robbed me of life as I mourned them for decades and wondered what I could have done to have had their ...