Contemplating Suicide

It’s the Holiday Season, folks, and unlike any other merriest time of the year and good cheer, unknown or unnoticed by many, funeral homes are making a killing once again. A morbid truth but the holiday spirit brings with it not only gladness, happiness, and joy but also depression, desperation, and thus, untimely deaths.

The climate of the season for each of us to be merry, unbeknownst to many, becomes one of the three demanding schedules for the mortician, the funeral homes, the crematoriums, and of course, the cemeteries. The most common reasons for deaths given: accidents and suicides. Unavoidable, you say, but then again, isn’t what we only wanted is to be happy, to forget our miseries, to start anew? Yet we succumb to the pressures to show a happy face and take risks we never thought would include our lives, especially, for the losers and lonely among us.

It seems that with the celebration, a more unseemly direction is taken by some of the participants whether in the company of others or in the privacy of their homes. According to local funeral owners, December, March, and May (not counting the climate changes that occur in mid August—at least, in my country here in Asia where disastrous floods and landslides were normal occurrences in the nature of things), these months were the busiest (if not the most lucrative) for them. March (Graduation Day) becomes highlighted for those who failed and took their lives than suffer humiliation, plus the unfortunate misadventures of the overjoyed who graduated, engaging in celebrations that went the wrong way. And for May, the month of flowers and youthful delights, of excursions, picnics, and outdoor adventures, road accidents, car or bus crashes, drowning, and fires become common occurrences.

Yet, December seems particularly keen on the suicides for obvious reasons: depression and despair. Desperation becomes visible and clear on the faces of some during the holidays, where almost everybody wears a good cheer shopping, eating, drinking, lounging, gift-giving, touring, or enjoying things planned ahead just for this occasion of gladness and merriment all over the world.

How many hearts lay wasted and broken in the lurch, where once hope shines so brightly and expectant for the individual, thinking that because it is the Holidays, a more affirmative, positive result can be had? I know of someone who broke the heart of her friend on Christmas day—the guy’s birthday!—by saying no to his proposal, and showing him she’s attached to someone else: She allowed the guy to meet each other on the same day. Do you feel the pain? Does it hurt?

How many dreams of wealth, of glory, of fame and fortune were shattered—and which the recollections became more obvious and painful during the Holidays—when everyone celebrates in glorious abandon without thought or concern, blind and drunk while they wallowed in their own pretensions? How many will drink their frustrations to death? How many will swallow their pills to forget, to sleep, and lay unawake till found the next day—sad, piteous, and gone forever?

How many unwanted life beating at the hearts of the soon-to-be-mothers will be aborted, only for the sake of the person thinking of starting anew, of forgetting the bad experience, of the accident that was not meant to happen at all—precautions were taken but it broke, Father—and thus, all guilt washed off? (I am not anti abortion, especially if it was due to rape or incest, but many unborn lives perished without a trace during this Season of Joy).

The Holiday Season magnifies a glaring desperation: The need to be with someone, to communicate with that someone, to feel important and love by that someone, or simply, to share and enjoy the delightful feelings with someone closest and most precious to one’s heart. Yet, how many can say they have someone? Or better yet, how many will spend it with a family?

Before the season is over, remember a person that was neglected or forgotten in your life—maybe last year or this year—and try to communicate. A simple hello or hi, or if you’re in the mood since it is the holidays, why not drop by? It is more important and valuable than a flask of rare wine.

Save the day, wear an honest face, bear your heart and carry your precious life waiting ahead of you—full and above everybody else’s—fill it with hope and dreams, all in a day’s cycle of life.

The Pain of Guilt

Perhaps, the most devastating emotion any human being is bound to suffer is the pain of guilt over love and not guilt over death, although most of the time, the two are inseparable and are somehow connected: we die literally inside whenever we lost a wonderful relationship–even friendship!–more so, if we have nurtured and tried to preserve it for so long.

Guilt over death only comes if we have committed a crime, if have caused it to happen or allowed it and intended it; yet, if the cause of death was accidental or unintentional or beyond our capacity to prevent, then the guilt becomes more intolerable and painful, haunting us for the rest of our lives sometimes, unable to erase the sad memory clinging and overwhelming our soul…especially, if it’s someone we love. (You are free to insert here your own horrible thoughts of losing a love one through your own hands.)

Thus, I wonder why so many of us play with love, taking things for granted as easily as we have enjoyed it, with an absence of remorse or fear for hurting those we have loved so much and cared for–yet, later on, would feel the eroding presence of guilt destroying us from within. For some, it becomes a ritual of their lives, uncaring who they hurt or leave behind to suffer in the end, middle, or start of every unfortunate affair, that in the mere thought of saying it–I love you–they can easily take refuge in their set of standard lies; calloused and unmindful of how the other party will live and try to survive.

Is guilt a fail safe mechanism then of a human being to retain his or her sanity over a loss, committed or otherwise? Guilt, it seems, guides us on our way back to our very own humanity; and to understand the severity of what we have done, we must suffer and bear the consequence/s no matter what, through it, step by step, until we understand the pain of what we did.

We cannot hide from it; of course, we can always try to forget. Yet, who among us can say we have forgotten–truly, honestly, sincerely erase our faults, our misdeeds, our errors from the past and present from our memory–and thus, arise a new person bubbling with renewed life and energy, free from any remorse or guilt?

Then again, we can always wear a mask, the same old thing we carry and use for all occasions, for any season, at any moment, for any time…as if, we are not the least, guilty at all.

VIVIAN, and THE REST OF US

Why should a person struggle to fight loneliness, even if, there is a family or circle friends willing to participate, to get involve and be a part of that struggle? The answer is quite obvious: loneliness is a personal battle, and it exists only in the minds and hearts of each of us. Come and think about it, after all, the pain or the hurting were brought to our lives because we allowed it to happen.

A broken heart? At least we knew from the start–that is, if we have been truly honest with ourselves–that the relationship will not work out or turn for the better no matter how hard we try.

Lost of self-esteem? Again, we all know the answers to that because we are the ones involved here and no one else. Failed ambition? We cannot change the course of our lives in a day, unless fairy godmother Luck waves her magic wand. We need to make the changes come about. We need to make that first step no matter what it takes. We, we, and only we can let it all happen to us–if only, we try.

“Happiness is a warm gun” as the Beatles’ song goes, and maybe, it was really meant for Loneliness in a twisted kind of way. (No, sweetheart, taking your life because you are lonely is not the answer nor the end of it. Worst, it was not even meant for you to happen at all in the first place, not unless, something so irreconcilable did happen–say, a car accident, a rape, or lost of limb or one of the senses. Still, stories of overcoming these painful and permanent personal situations are not unheard of.)

I know what you are thinking…I am already preaching. No. I only try to look at the brighter side when the gloom and the doom cloud my senses while my emotions came rushing up to my throat strangling me, choking me to say “I give up!”

No…There is always a next moment, an hour or a day to see things better and clearer, to find solutions to what we once considered absolute and definite. There is a rainbow, after all, hidden in every storm.

My brother used to say whenever I told him I want to write a novel (while begging him to take at least a tiny peek on the first chapter) that he’ll wait for the book, when it’s already in the stores. That used to hurt me, but it also prodded me to take more aggressive steps to learn how to write my first novel. (At this time, that is not yet a reality but I am not giving up–oh no, I’m not!!) In a way, I believe writers are also lonely people, i.e., reclusive and not that sociable, especially while in the midst of that all-too important flow of story. I am an artist, and I have experienced losing my temper if anyone or anybody would knock on the door only to say why don’t I go out and have some social fun, while I’m actually deep in a religious communication with an on-going work.

I have forgone doing some art related projects because of these uncalled for distractions, only to come again and visit the works after a year or two. I take things sincerely, seriously like a relationship, and it wounds me and defeats my purpose whenever I am distracted and taken away from that “moment” of creative bliss. Yet, I don’t give up. I will come back to it to find my lost precious moments.

We are only humans, and we have our ups and downs; we can fail, fall and be dragged to the ground unconscious. Or we can be hoisted up high in our own pedestals, lifted in the clouds to touch it with our open hearts. It’s a cycle of life, they say, and we must be strong and fortified to either fight it or be swallowed whole by it.

Fame is a dangerous thing if one is not ready for it. And so is Failure, if we are weak to rally against it. Yet both carry with them a tinge of loneliness, unavoidable and necessary, to check us in our moments of glorious ecstasy, or delirious agony.

So we hoped, we hoped that we will overcome the barriers that prevent us from reaching our goal on the either side of being alone. But be careful now…Embrace only what your heart can carry, and let go of everything that felt unnecessary.