Warning: This has nothing to do with swordsmanship, my personal journey, and may be a bit too soon and too fresh for some people. I do not mean any disrespect, and please know my intentions are clear. I need to vent about something that is getting to me.
Last night I cried. It was the first time I remember crying over the death of a celebrity, but my life was touched by this one in particular, so I felt a genuine sadness for this one lost. In light of that, and many of my friends who I have lost over the years to their own hands, despite the sadness and grief, and the holes left in our collective hearts, I still believe it should be your choice.
There are people hurting in the world. Many of them, without the world seeing it in the light of day. The happy, spunky friend who always has a good attitude during the day, when they are alone with their thoughts may be going through things we have no idea about. To those who are hurting I suggest reach out. I suggest talk to someone, anyone, but if what you need is to talk find that. It is a lot better that way than doing something as a cry for help that may hurt you long term, could even kill you, when all you needed was to talk, and maybe some antidepressants to help balance things out some. Last night it wondered if Robin Williams had known just how many lives he had touched, and mattered to, would that have changed it? I have no answers, none of us will ever know.
There is a finality of death. It is the nature of the beast. I have also been there. When the only answer is out, anyway you can get there. When the sadness and grief, the pain, seems so much that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes people need a hand up, sometimes no matter what you say or do for them will not be enough, and their choice becomes to pull themselves up, or to find a way out. I do not know if knowing the lives he touched would have pulled him out this time, no one knows for sure. But despite that I still believe that it is (our should be) your choice.
Things are not always cut and dry. I cannot say with absolute certainty that if we, as people were kinder to each other that it would keep everyone from ending their own lives. It is not that cut and dry. But I know some lives may be saved, and that alone may make the difference. We need to be a society where it is OK to ask for help and get it. Where there is not a stigma attached to being depressed, like it is something so wrong with a person that if they go to get help it means somehow that they have failed at life somehow. That kind of thinking needs to be over. We all have our down times, the times when we are sad or feel loss for something, or someone. It is a part of life that as a society we brush over, like it is not OK to be down and be having a hard time sometimes. We need to change how we see things. It is OK to be down, it is OK to ask for help, or need to talk to someone about what is going on without the stigma attached to it.
But even in this loss, even in the losses of friends over the years something else is also clear. It is OK for people to decide about their lives. Sometimes the hand up is not the answer, and that has to be OK too. It should be OK to decide on your own terms how your life comes to an end. If you are sick and the only way out is that way, it should be OK to go that way. No stigma attached, but safe ways that are not going to end others lives in the process. If it was OK to go your way, rather than in a fiery crash on the freeway that ends others lives.
As a people we are not OK with death. It comes to all of us, but we absolutely are not OK with it. When a ninety something year old person dies who has been in constant pain for the last 30 years we face it with sorrow, as though we want them to hold on forever so we do not have to face death. We want people who are on life support and who are alive because machines are keeping them there to stay alive forever, no matter their pain or quality of life, we want them alive so we do not have to face death. As if it is some curse that if we hold on long enough will skip us, keep the people in our lives alive and well so we never have to face it, or be sad because of a loss.
They are tied, the stigma and the holding on to those who it is their time to go. To me that needs to change. It is OK to die. It will happen to all of us in our time. I have been mad at my friends who choose their way out, I am hurting and somehow it is their fault. What is wrong with that is that I am sad that they are gone, I can even shake my fist at the sky because they choose to go the way they did, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it is their choice. I can be mad, but it was their life, and they choose how to go with it, and I have to respect that choice. It should be your choice. It should be that getting help was easy, no stigma attached, we all go through hard times, and it is OK to be down sometimes. But if the only way that you can see through the darkness and pain is out, we need to allow that to be OK too.
In the end, we all die. It does not matter how hard we try not to, death comes anyway. Hold those in your life who matter near to you, show them that they matter, make a difference in the lives of others. Today I am sad for the loss of someone I looked up to, but he touched so many lives I cannot say that he did not make a difference. I also cannot say that it was not his choice to go as he choose, and ultimately that is and should be his choice and despite the pain, that is and should be OK.
