Our boys and Big are very active in Boy Scouts. A year ago when we needed a temporay house for 15 months it was thru a scouting family that a rental was found.
This family has 4 boys from 6 to 19 and a little girl who just over 4. All of the boys are well known in the scouting troops and the family is very active overall. Sunday, the dad and one of the middle sons joined two of our boys and the rest of the troop at Scout camp for what was to have been a 5 day adventure.
Given our two connections to this family their recent tradgedy has hit very close to home for us. Tuesday night , rather late, the oldest boy was found hanging in his closet by his mother. News of his death spread rapidly and the father and son away at camp left in the wee early morning hours to make a long and I’m certain difficult drive home.
As a parent my heart goes out to this family as a mother I am identifying greatly with his mother. It is unimaginable and one of the worst kinds of grief to lose a child. My mind conjurs all of these images of a mother of bringing this life into the world and being alone without your spouse by your side to find this child you gave life too, lifeless and departed from this world. I admit to being almost fixated by this tragedy because of the age of the boy, and the proximity his family had to ours.
Somewhere in the equation of sympathy and empathy I find anger. While his family is in my thoughts and those thoughts are filled with compassion my mind eventually turns to this young man and I find anger.
What in this life could be so horrible that death was the only way out. And putting all of those reasons aside, his father was away, did he give no thought to who would find him. That it would be his mother and that the site of him in death would be etched forever in her mind, that she and those around him would forever wonder and question what they missed, what could they have done or not done to save him. Did it ever cross his mind that rather than his mother it could have been one of his brothers or his sister, barely out of toddlerhood who could have found him. Or worse still, was it not his pain he was trying to escape, but rather create pain for those who loved him. Was it an act of rebellion or anger that caused him to take this step ?
Those who choose suicide to end their “suffering”, have absolutly no clue to the suffering they will be leaving behind. This boy has left a family shattered, and this family will spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of everything, trying to put the pieces back to together and hoping for life to be normal again. But it never will be.
Suicide is taking the easy way out, you may leave all of your pain behind, but you leave it for everyone else to deal with. This young man’s death has reached far beyond his immediate family and the ripples and shockwaves will travel further what one could imagine. I have never personally met this young man, only seen him from afar, and his face now haunts me as my mind replays the agony his mother must have went thru and imagining the difficulty of getting thru these next few days of funeral preperation, viewings and laying him to rest.
Our boys and their troop will be returing home a day early in order to have the opportunity to pay their respects. They are going to be taking part in something I wish for no young person and that is to say a final goodbye to a life ended to soon.
I urge you our readers, please take time to be aware of your young ones. Talk to them. Let them know it is safe to talk to you. There are times when kids need us to be parents, and others when they just need us to be shoulders and ears. And let them know that if they can not talk to you, you will help them find someone that can talk to. And if that is an avenue your child takes, don’t be offended. Be grateful , because that person may be the one to save your child’s life.
Temptress
