Laughing at Death

"What's lost is nothing to what's found." from Listen to Your Life, Frederick Buechner

I learned this morning of a man who killed himself last night.  I didn't know the man. He and I had never met. But I know people who knew him.  And because of that, I have been grieving his death today. It feels like it touches me.

But I'm grieving also for the pain it kicks up from distant losses to suicide. When my mother called me in October of 1990 to tell me that my best friend from childhood had taken his own life, as soon as we hung up, I called his mother. "Grief stricken" is such a gross understatement when a mother tries to absorb that blow.  Even years later she asked me, "David, why did he do that?  Why did he not ask me for help?"   Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?  Regardless of the circumstances, that's what suicide leaves in its wake.  If the victim leaves a note or thirteen tapes behind, he never answers the question "why?"

But I have my own ideas about the person who takes his or her own life.  I am of the opinion that this person does not want to die, s/he wants to live.  S/he has exhausted every possible solution to his problems and emotional despair this side of the ground. So s/he decides to take his chances on the other side. Whatever is there has to be better than this. The method of suicide is simply a means to this end, a door to the other side.

In many cases the suicide is triggered by some sort of event. In many other cases, there is no particular event that causes him to pull the trigger or climb to the tenth floor. I read just this morning, before I heard about this death, of a man whose teen aged son killed himself. The father said of his son, "He died of sadness."  If you've never been depressed, there is no way to understand this.  But it is possible to feel so awful for so long that you lose all hope of ever feeling any better. Buechner, who I quoted above, also wrote, "Now abides faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is hope." Once a person loses hope, he has lost everything. When you look at the world through the lens of hopelessness, then all of the world is gray. There is no color, no joy, no love. Nothing of value. Absolutely nothing to look forward to or to live for.

In spite of having so much at the time,  I almost lost all hope. No matter what else you have, if you've lost hope, you've lost everything.  I now keep hope beside me at all times. Now, no matter what else I lose, I always have  hope. And I believe with all my heart and soul that in any every situation,  "what is lost is nothing compared to what's found".

That night that I talked to my friend's mother, I asked her if I could come down and speak at his funeral.  She said, "I would like that very much."  And I added, "But some of it might be funny."  She replied, "Well, we could all use some laughter right about now." And I did speak. And we did laugh. And it was good.

I find myself not knowing how to respond to this death, to this family.  We say so often that "my thoughts and prayers are with you."   And so for now that's the best I have, my thoughts and prayers. If it becomes clear that I can do something else, then I'll do it.

YouTube has strayed quite far from the video I originally listened to, Where Have the Actors Gone by Morten Lauridsen.  As I write these words, YouTube is playing The Road Home by Stephen Paulus.  That then is my prayer for  this young man who took his own life last night and my best friend who took his own life in 1990. I hope to God that you found the road home. I hope to God that you found the peace you so desperately needed. I wish you could have found it here with us, but you didn't. I'll try to learn to accept that.

There's nothing funny about death. There's certainly nothing funny about suicide. God forbid we laugh because someone has died. We laugh because that person wasn't always so sad. We remember things he said and did that even now bring us joy and laughter. We laugh because what that person gave us is so much more than he has taken away. But most importantly, we laugh because death doesn't have the final word.  As John Donne penned in 1609, "One short sleep past, we wake eternally and death shall be no more; death thou shalt die."