I didn’t go to work that one day last week so I wasn’t on the train that afternoon. I would have been there, sitting and waiting, but I had decided to work from home instead. It was a sunny afternoon in my living room. I had to pull the curtains so that I could read the words on my computer scene.
But when I got to the station the next morning, I saw the signs there apologizing for the delays in service the day before. I wonder if you thought about that. Delays. Inconvenience. All that. Probably not. I wouldn’t have, I don’t think. You had other things on your mind.
I don’t mean that to sound snarky or judgemental. I don’t mean to criticize. It’s just an observation. Your act – jumping under a train, not thinking about others – has made me think about you.
I don’t know anything about you. I definitely don’t know why you did it. I don’t know how dark you must have felt. I don’t even know if you are a man or a woman. I don’t know if you meant to do it. Maybe you slipped. All I know I read on the formal sign at the station, and it only said “person under a train.”
I haven’t lived long in this city, but I understand that this happens frequently. There are a lot of people who make themselves slip under the trains. So, you’ve joined a bit of a growing group. Those who see trains as weapons, the perfect weapon to turn against themselves. Or maybe their families.
I can almost see the logic in your choice. It’s bound to be quick. And there is a romantic drama about it, I suppose, in a literary way. I’ve heard also about people running down into the tunnels. One last sprint into certain nothingness, certain only that the end will come, rushing and soon. Dramatic.
But I can’t get my head around the actual act of doing it. How can you throw everything away like that? Yes, seasons and trees and birds and all that, sunsets and chocolate. But what about fingers? They are wonderful, when you look at them. And thumbs. My daughter likes to play with mine, measuring hers against mine when we are talking together. We link pinkies to make promises and twiddle thumbs at each other like puppets and laugh. She likes to trace the shape of the veins along my thumb and up my wrist, too. She says they look like trees. She is still little. And she’s learning how to read. She finds words everywhere – in newspapers, in shop windows, on signs. She knows enough words now to read the formal signs at the station. But she wasn’t with me that morning, so she didn’t see them. I’m not sure what I’ll tell her when she does.
Just like I’m not sure what to say to you. This letter is a bit late, really. But I wanted you to know that I am thinking about you.
I can’t say that I understand, but I can say that I am thinking about you.
Suicide is so sad. When someone commits suicide, we immediately say we should have done something. Often with suicide, there is no warning. Only after the suicide do we step back and think, oh yeah, perhaps there were signs. Perhaps the person withdrew from life bit by bit….they no longer laughed… they no longer found joy in their lives… yet often there are no signs.
With my son now in the Canadian Forces and knowing that one of these days he will sign up to be deployed and how deployments change people… some to suicide, he is hearing “Mother comments”. Mother comments are those pithy short important things to share with a son or daughter. Mother comments are “life is always worth living”, “what God gave to you is precious”, “you always have a choice”, “there is never any problem too big that God can not see you through” “you are precious”, and “there are many people who love and care for you”. Remember that.
For those who commit suicide, like the person under the train, we have a big responsibility to keep these people in our prayers…. first to keep those who commit suicide in God’s care and second for those the person left behind to know that God is weeping with them and continues to uphold them in God’s love. As God is timeless, so are our prayers timeless. That one prayer we make today for the nameless suicider under the train might end up helping another hundred people who want to jump under the train but are stopped because our prayers keep them in God’s love and care. Some people think this is a very simplistic view of Christianity. But as Christians are compelled to prayer. Not for our own sakes but so our prayers can help others always.
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So sad! What else can I say? I weep with the finality of his/her life on earth and the pain they must have been under to take this unthinkable step. What a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Oh yes! I make Mother comments to my two grown guys every chance I get. I text them how proud of them I am. I write epics in their birthday cards. I tell them all the time how much I love them. I pray without ceasing…
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Yes, I sometimes turn my thoughts & prayers to those affected by suicide. I also know that as parents we have told our children that we love them & are proud of them but I realize that I for one have not said it often enough to them. I let others know how proud I am our children but I think that I must tell my own kith & kin more frequently – to their faces. Everyone needs to be loved & wanted & needed in this life – to have value in a disposable society.
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i’m not quite sure how i ended up here, perhaps God led me to your site. for a year and a half now i have been crying out to God to help me understand why nobody cared and now i see that not only do people care but you are trying also to understand . maybe a small beginning ,but a beginning nonetheless. On october 1st 2009 our son became the man under the train. His name was Casey. he suffered with an extremely debilitating mental illness. i struggled alongside casey throughout the last eight years of his life. i thought we would make it. i thought my words of love and encouragement would help .i was positive God would bring us through this nightmare intact. it is a very lonely path If he had cancer or some other condition that could be seen but a disease of the brain one that affects behavior,. a disease our son was afflicted with through n o fault of his own.family and friends ran… not to help us…but away from us. He only wanted love he was so loving,thoughtful.kind to a fault . He was our beautiful son.
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