I first saw a review for the book "history of a suicide - my sister's unfinished life" in what must have been time magazine, or maybe perhaps it was the nation. it must have been time, the nation's review of books is always very wordy - sometimes so much so that i feel like i need to have a phd in order to understand just what the hell the author of the essay is talking about.
"history of a suicide" interested me, in part because i am still not over greg's death & i want to understand more why he did what he did, and partly because i myself, have been suicidal. it sounds illogical, to write that sentence, when i read it over again. like i do not understand why a person would want to die - when i understand, all too well, why life would make a person want to die. i understand all too well how life can batter a person down, how it can make you just want for it to fucking stop. and, in fact, up until greg's death, i believed that suicide was a viable option for me. a last ditch effort when life got too shitty and i just couldn't deal with it any more. when, in the throes of my depression - which, often gets unbearable, in the worst moments of my self hatred, ending it all by my own hand had always seemed like a decent way to go. in fact, i recall that those who had known me (i do not speak to them anymore) believed very strongly that if i did not die from an accidental or mostly intentional drug overdose, then, it would most definitely be by suicide by age 27.
perhaps this notion would have become true if not for a few factors -
1. i moved back home & in doing so, watched my father, a once brilliant man turn into the simple minded never without morphine always high man that he is now. i do not blame him because he is in pain, but it became obvious that his pain medications were doing more than just getting rid of his pain, they were also obliterating his mental capacity for conversation, high minded dialog, and in general participation with the world & his family. he was and is content to sit or lay in bed & have the world pass him by. i realized that, i too, was on a rather fast path to becoming like this - a zombie in my bed, numbed out and high most of the time.
2. i watched my then best friend's little brother die from cancer. it was horrible, and what was not lost on me was that a person who so desperately wanted to live, was not going to get that chance, and i, at the time, did not, at all want to be on this planet. i regret a lot of the choices i made during this period of time. i feel a lot of shame, a lot of regret, and a lot of anger towards myself because i should have known better. i know that my friend is so phenomenally fucked up from that experience, and instead of being a better friend & kicking her ass for being stupid, i let her make stupid choices, and i made stupid choices with her. while i quit making those dumb choices, i don't think she did - i suspect she continued to fuck up and hid it from me. we never talked about it, and when i did try to get her to be honest with me, it was met with an uncomfortable silence. i wasn't the person she wanted to talk to about any of that. i hope one day that she is able to forgive me for participating in ... being such a huge mess, with her. i wish i had known then what i know now.
3. i did not die, from the huge amount of drug use that went on during the five years that i attempted to numb my pain. the fact that i didn't, although i came close a few times, is still a mystery to me. the fact that i never ended up in a rehab, that i was able to come out of all of it, and quit my destructive habits on my own, with simply my own force of will, is something i still don't understand. why is it that i can regulate the amount of pills i take? how is it that i can keep from being tempted and not want to get high anymore? perhaps it is because i finally stopped running. i finally took a good look in the mirror and i worked out what was wrong with me. i forgave myself as much as i could for everything i hated about who i had become, and i slowly worked on changing into the person i am now. at the time it really didn't seem like i would ever make it - i figured quite honestly, that i would fail, and more than likely, that i would end up like a lot of the people i know - on the streets, involved in some shady relationship where i trade my body for drugs, and in order to deal with the fact that i have sunk that low, i would do more drugs and the cycle would repeat until i finally died. and when i died i would be lucky. truly, this was how i saw my life. it is not lost on me that i must be a strong person, to be able to look at wynn, to be near him, and know i can ask for heroin, to know that he wanted me to - that he was hoping & praying i would just ask him, just please ask him for it because he would have given it to me, and we could have had a glorious downfall together. that a big part of him was banking on that, was banking on my will power not being strong enough to say no. but, it was. it is and it was and all i saw was what i used to be and god, it was pathetic and i felt sad for her, i felt so sad for her.
4. but most important - i lost greg. greg's death has had as much of a profound impact on me as robb's did, if not more. because robb's was, in some ways, expected. when you play with fire, you expect to get burned.
but i never, in my wildest dreams expected that greg, my best friend, my quirky socially anxious little brother that i wasn't born with but thank the gods i got to have, would, kill himself.
and so, i picked up this book, in some ways, because, i want, and will always want to know, why he did it. why did he decide that life was so unbearable? why didn't he tell me? he told me everything. i was the person he came to with his problems. if he couldn't tell me he felt like dying - then, i failed him as a friend, as a sister. i miss him so much. with ray in my life, that sting just hurts all the more, because greg would have loved ray & they would have become such good friends. greg would be proud of me too, for finally being with someone who i am equal with, for dating someone i deserve. i always wanted greg to be part of my wedding, and, when ray and i talk about marriage and kids, which we do, talk about - more often than ive ever talked about it with anyone else - it becomes bittersweet because there are so many people that won't be there, but most of all, greg won't be there, and it sucks.
and so i am reading this book, and i keep writing down other books it references, all about suicide - as if i can somehow understand and connect the dots. i used to think that greg had just lost it - that it was this momentary lapse of insanity, but, i know that isn't true. because when he came over to my house, the day before he died, he looked at my mother & i, in a way, that said he was saying goodbye. in the book, it said that most suicides privately say goodbye to those they love & care about before they commit the act. it was only in retrospect that the look he gave both of us made sense. i tell myself it was a momentary lapse of insanity, but i know it wasn't. there was no note. i used to think it was because of nina & he had broken up, that she had left him for matthew. but i don't really even know the full story of that. all i know is that the last place he went was to her work, that he watched her or something before he went into his car, shut the garage door, ran the engine, and died. the next door neighbor found him, and it was too late.
the book has now become highlighted, sticky tabbed, marked up. i keep looking for answers in it.
but i know even when i reach the last pages, the answers i am looking for, aren't going to be there.
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