Well okay...

[Guest guest]

I guess I'll tell you one of the things I found out this weekend.

First of all, I guess I should start off by saying that I did not go to

the family Christmas party this year. I figured there would be too much

noise and everyone would be behaving too obnoxiously. From what I heard

afterwards, I was right.

But four years ago, a friend of mine comitted suicide, and her brother

committed suicide three years ago. The story as I knew it was that the

woman was beat up and tormented by her husband to such an extent that

she could not stand it anymore. She put one of her brother's fireworks

in her mouth and lit the fuse. Her mom found her in the basement

shortly after the explosion.

Her brother felt guilty for having the fireworks around and a year to

the day after his sister's death, he killed himself by parking on

Milwaukee's highest bridge and jumping off.

Both of these people were my friends. Their mom was at the party (they

are family friends) and she said there was more to the story that she

hadn't let out yet. The brother had climbed on the railing and prepared

to jump, but a passing motorist had called 911. A police woman

responded and called for backup. She got out of the car and tried to

talk him down, but he climbed over and hung there.

She talked to him and told him to hang on. After a while, she managed

to talk him out of it, but she didn't have the strength to pull him

back up. He couldn't hold his weight anymore and began to slip. She

grabbed for him but couldn't hang on and he fell to his death, getting

run over by traffic on the bridge below, but he was more likely than

not dead when he hit the ground because it was such a long fall.

The police woman quit the force because of that incident.

I guess this little bit of news was something I didn't need to know.

The idea that he changed his mind at the last moment but died anyway is

a lot to take in. While I do think suicide is everyone's personal

right, it's hard to deal with the aftermath sometimes.

I guess I don;t even know why I am writing this.

Tom

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