On Suicide, Via Heisenberg (person)

Once someone has made up their mind to kill themselves, no one else can stop it.

The problem is, some people make the decision ten years before pulling the trigger, and others are not really sure of what they are doing while they twitch on the rope.

To step into another's mind at the final instant and know with surety that they are doing what they need to do, or realizing too late the greatest mistake...

Do not berate yourself for failing to stop the extinguishment of another. If they meant to do it, all you can do is achieve a postponement. If they do not mean to do it, then the only way to prevent their personal eschaton is to arrive at the very when, the instant of crisis, and open the garage door, take razor blade from trembling hand, remove the plastic bag and load their stomach with coffee and charcoal.

If they try to go because they need to go, you will earn no friendship from them for keeping them from the boatman, but venom and bile.

If they are going by mistake, not words but actions are the only way.

In a cry for help, in an attempt designed not to succeed, they will seek you out, they will arrange things so that they will be found in time. They will not make sure everyone who loves them is out of town, they will not carefully, quietly, casually say goodbyes that are only seen as such after they are gone.

There are errors, certainly. There are practice runs gone bad, suicides that would be better classified as death by misadventure. There are those who go screaming, "Wait! It's a mistake!" There are those who slip silently away with an inaduble sigh of regret.

To murder self is an act desparate and final, and you could not have stopped it, even had we been there, even if I had known her, even if. Even if.

How do you deal with the suicide of a parent you never knew? Bit by bit, in steps, from the cushion of time's remove. By being haunted, by gaining resolve. It is, in a way, an ultimate rejection. But there is nothing I could have done.