IS SUICIDE IN ANY SENSE A MEANINGFUL ACT

Quoting again from the interview with Karen Green widow of  David Wallace who committed suicide.

She resists the idea that suicide is in any sense a meaningful act. “It was a day in his life," she says, "and it was a day in mine. People tell me I should have been prepared, because of David's history with depression. But of course, I wasn't prepared at all. I wouldn't have left him alone in the house, ever, if I thought that would happen. I still feel like it was a mistake that was made."

I also do not know if suicide is a meaningful act. In one sense, it is a way to relieve the pain of suffering that must be pretty awful for someone to seriously contemplate suicide. I think Andrew planned his suicide with an escape clause, which for better or worse, he did not activate. As I mentioned, he told Marnie that he was going to go off his medicines, eat healthy, and see what happens. If that did not work, he was” going to do something about it”. Looking back with our 20/20 hindsight, it is so easy to see what he was considering. He was leaving us plenty of clues that he was planning to take his life.

      In some way, we all collaborated with him by being unable to see what was unfolding even though we were all in communication with Andrew. He spent the last week at our house and I spontaneously decided to take the week off work.  The conscious mind seems fragile to me. At least in my case, it seems I was simply not able to see what I could not cope with. I did not have the emotional know-how to deal with the reality of Andrew’s death, so in the end I was unable to see what is now so obvious.