Suicides

I returned to work and reviewed our log of significant events. Earlier in the day our guys were dispatched to a suicide call. A woman locked herself in the bathroom. She sat in the bathtub then shot herself. She died at the hospital. Now of course the death isn't official until the investigation is complete. Plus, women don't usually commit suicide by gunshot. Naturally the detectives will take a good look at this. Anyhow if this is an actual suicide talk about a lousy day for the family who was there. My boss and I talked about suicide. He jokes with me that if he is found dead and it's ruled a suicide then my job is to blow the whistle because he wouldn't do that. Then he tells me about his old friend and mentor when he was told he had terminal cancer. He was the same way, no way he'd kill himself. However before he died he confessed that he did consider it. My boss was shocked, this was the last man he'd expect to ever consider suicide. However he was in pain and every man has his breaking point which brought me to a tought. According to Christianity suicide is the ultimate sin. Taking one's own life, God's ultimate gift if unforgiveable. However what do you do when you're already dead and slowly suffering and in pain? There was an old episode of Night Court where a woman walks into the court and claims to have murdered her husband. Come to find out he was in pain and he took his own life. Charles Robinson's character says a line saying that there is a point that God did not intend for man to go past. It makes for an interesting debate.

Anyhow, my boss told me a story. He worked a suicide years ago when he was a deputy in a rural Texas county. An elderly couple who had been together their entire lives had both been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They were both dead and they knew it. One day they decided they were going to end their lives together. Rather than one of them die first and leave the other a grieving widow. They killed themselves on the front porch of their country home. Their bodies sat on the front porch for a few days until someone got close enough to realize they were not chilling, they were dead!

I made a suicide scene a few years back. A guy was living alone in a house his parents owned. He was broke and had no running water nor electricity. It was a sh**** way to live. I could never live that way. One day, after snorting some cocaine he decided to hang himself and that's how he was found. He was wearing boxer shorts and a white t shirt. The rope was tightly wound around his neck and went up to the roof. I would like to think that if I found myself in that situation I would resolve to work and bust my ass to get the water and power back on. Perhaps kicking the cocaine habit would help.