|
One of my sorority sisters, Dori, killed herself when I was at school. She had taken a full load of classes AND was president of the student chapter of the Amer Mktg Assn (which was huge at Penn State). She was a dear girl (if a little driven and perfectionist) and deeply loved by us all.
Over Christmas break, she went to a job fair, saw the hundreds of other applicants, and broke down, not returning to school in January. She started third trimester in the Spring, but didn't complete it. If you looked into her eyes, she no longer seemed "there"; many of use were worried about her, but knew her family was closeknit and was aware of the problems.
That semester, she went over to her sister's house, got in one of the cars, and let it run with the garage doors closed.
Her rabbi said something to keep in mind if someone close to you committs suicide, and you didn't pick up on the symptoms. He said that we can't know what's going on in someone else's mind -- that thinking that "I should have seen it coming" is like playing God. Not that you don't make yourself aware of the symptoms, or try to intervene if you see something that looks wrong. But if you don't see symptoms, or if you saw them, and weren't able to prevent the person from taking her own life, you attribute Godly Powers to your own little mortal self, and think "I should have know what was going on in their head."
__________________
A∑A
|