Missing Persons

It happened again this week; it has only happened once before, but both times left me a little bit breathless and a large bit melancholy.  I was wandering the streets of my hometown at a summer festival, and I looked ahead a few yards and spied a man who looked exactly like Roy.  Exactly.  Like.  Him.

Now, I am not totally brain-dead, and I do know that my husband died over thirteen years ago, but for one tiny instant, I wanted to just run up and ask, “Where the hell have you been?  Why did you go away?  How ARE you?!”

(Incidentally, the first time it happened, I was walking back to my office in San Francisco in 2010, and I actually started to walk up to the poor guy, then realized that he was a stranger and there was truly NOTHING I could say to him that wouldn’t make me seem like a lunatic, so I let it go.)

But it makes a person realize how imprinted on our hearts our loved ones are, even when they have been gone for quite some time.  The influence, for me, is great enough that I can close my eyes and remember Roy’s tuneless humming, the scrape-scrape-scrape sound of my dad shaving, the fluffy softness of my mom’s robe on my cheek when I snuggled up to her on the couch in the evening.

Certainly, though, the recent memories are often the strongest, and when someone dies suddenly and before his/her time, it’s a huge blow, and the memories are all-consuming.  If there is a lot of “what-if”-ing (or, as one of my friends once termed it, “the curse of the shoulds”), it can be almost impossible to endure.

This past week, only a couple days after I had the jolt of seeing the Roy lookalike, one of Roy’s nephews surrendered to whatever demons were driving him, and took his own life.  The sadness of it is incredible, even to me, and I hadn’t seen him in, well, thirteen years.  I cannot imagine what his parents, and brothers, and children, are going through.  All I can do is hope and pray that they somehow, someday, find peace and can simply recall his huge laugh, his random (and hilarious) utterings, and his oh-so-kind heart.

There have been a couple times in my life (luckily, not recently) when I was weighed down by depression, and I often think that I just barely escape its cloud much of the time.  It’s a heavy, barren feeling, and it’s almost impossible to shake.  I have fought it with and without medication, and have learned some coping mechanisms that [mostly] help me tremendously.  I do, though, recall that in my darkest period I just plain wished I could go to sleep and never awake.  One of my friends told me once that suicide is a “long-term solution to a short-term problem.”  It makes sense to a sane person, but what if your problem is NOT short-term?  Or, what if your problem SEEMS short-term to everyone but yourself?  The solution begins to appear as a liberation, a perfect escape.  It’s really hard to shake that off, and I understand how it could become a constant companion that finally convinces you to end your pain permanently.

For those of you who have never felt this turmoil, I am truly happy.  Freedom from that kind of darkness is a huge gift, not to be taken lightly.  For those of us who have ever been plagued by darkness, I say this: Tell someone.  Tell everyone who will listen.  There *is* safety in numbers, and there is some freedom in the telling itself.  Seek help far and wide.  And for those who know someone who is struggling with this demon, please be supportive, and open, and loving.  Shower the people you love with love - unconditionally.  Don’t minimize their pain.  Hold them close.  And, if you think there is real danger, make a call.  Peace be with you all.