Stories of Stories' Ends

Ninety percent of suicide survivors say that when they were at a point that they actually thought they were going to die, they regretted their decision to kill themselves. So supposedly, out of every ten people that jump off a building, nine will decide about halfway down that they may be overreacting. I, however, had a few problems with this statistic upon initially hearing it. First of all, this survey is only conducted amongst suicide survivors. It is exceedingly difficult to interview the ones that got the job done. For all we know, ten out of ten hit the concrete thinking- 'Damn, I'm brilliant!' Secondly, I'm convinced a major reason these people survived at all is because they changed their mind halfway down. It's that whole mind over matter thing. If with only 5 stories to go, you decide you want to live, I think it's possible that you've just willed yourself to live. So of course it's the survivors that feel a sense of relief.

My perspective, however, has changed since initially hearing this statistic.

The first encounter with suicide I had came when I was a child. The local news covered a story about a guy who had placed more than his life savings on some Cubs games during what can only be described as an unfortunate season. He hung himself with an angry note to the Cubs players nailed into his sternum. A nail in his heart and a pile of drugs in his gut. The execution certainly required dedication, but at the end of the day there was this unsettling feeling for anybody who heard a man had hung himself over a baseball game. I blame that report for my disinterest in sports.

Anyway, at some point during that story, the reporter must have used the actual word "suicide." There were no pictures to accompany the story (thank God) and the concept of "hanging" was foreign at that young age. While I was watching the news in the living room, insisting I was not distracted from my homework, my mom was cooking furiously in the kitchen behind me. I got on my knees to see over the back of the couch and asked my mom what suicide was. My mom had resolved that she was never going to lie to her children and confront any issues my sister or I had head on. This meant if I asked about Santa Claus at age 5, I was getting ready to have my tender heart broken. If I asked what sex meant at age 6, I was going to sit down with an illustrated book for the next two hours. Both of these things happened. My mother's attempt to be an honest, respectable parent wound up sucking all the fun and innocence out of being a child.

Asking about suicide was no exception. My mother promptly turned off the stove and took a seat on the couch next to me. She first gave me a textbook definition, and proceeded to list possible reasons someone may resort to such drastic measures. "Often," she began in her sweetest after-school-special voice, "someone feels trapped by financial difficulties, meaning they don't think they have enough money, or they don't feel like there is anyone who loves them. It can be because someone is lonely or sick or angry..."

"...Or because the Cubs lose?" I continued.

"Yes, someone highly invested in the Cubs may decide suicide is necessary if the Cubs lose. That doesn't happen very often." Another interesting parenting technique my mom had adopted was to not influence my opinion on any of the adult subjects I may ask about. When I asked about sex, I was taught every scientific term and many sutra positions, but I was not given a speech about only having sex for love or saving sex for marriage. I was also not instructed that it was a good thing that I should pursue immediately. Same for my inquiries of suicide. Although my mom confessed that it was rare for s kama omeone to kill himself over a sports loss, I was not told that such behavior was unreasonable. If that was a priority, it was up to me to decide if such action was appropriate.

The second memory I have of suicide came many years down the road and hit a lot closer to home. This time it was my uncle. He had a loving wife and two kids, almost the same age and my sister and I. This time the story of his passing didn't end in a commercial break. He had apparently hung himself in his bathroom with a note on the door that read, "Don't open the door. Just call the police." I remember thinking that was very nobel. But of course my aunt hadn't listened. She opened the door and let out a shrill shriek that gave her daughters nightmares. The proceeded to sob in an hysterical manner that still hadn't let up by the time of the funeral.

I witnessed from a safe distance how my uncles suicide had disrupted his family. I have to believe he thought he was doing them a favor by kicking that chair out from under him. He had no idea the therapy his wife would go further in debt to pay for or the way each member of his immediate family would blame herself. Or what that first Christmas would feel like.

The reasons for my uncle's unforeseen desperation were never made clear to me, but I gathered enough to know it was more significant than the failures of a sports team.

The third brush with suicide I had was the one that altered my perception of that statistic. This time, the suicide revolved around myself. After college, I went straight into accounting, determined to use my degree in the most obvious way possible. I was employed by a national corporation with promising stocks. When the bottom fell out three years later, I simply moved to a smaller company. Barely had to touch my savings before I was employed again, making nearly as much as I had before.

As a matter of fact, it was at this new job that I met the love of my life. Before Meghan, I'd never been in a relationship long enough to celebrate a major holiday or birthday together. This had never really bothered me. I was in enough relationships to keep my self-esteem afloat and never long enough to get bored or deal with the complicated stuff. But Meghan changed everything. She pushed me into that uncomfortable zone where you realize your whole life, you've never really known who you are. I hated how she challenged every perspective I'd ever held about love and life, but it was pushing me to be a stronger, better man.

We never quite got that far, though. Before I could be a stronger man, I had to be at my most vulnerable. And that was when she left me. There were no warning signs and certainly no shot at redemption for whatever I had done wrong. I simply woke up one morning she wasn't by my side. In her place was a note saying she had been offered a job in New York City. Even though I never saw the notes left behind by the Cubs fan or my uncle, this note somehow reminded me of them. One note and suddenly she just wasn't in my life anymore. No way to contact her.

I became a broken shell of a man. I became everything I used to make fun of. Everything that had kept me from investing too much in a woman. I struggled to get to sleep and woke up with ease as if I'd only been resting my eyes. My work performance suffered and I physically began moving slower in normal activities. My friends, many of whom were already settled down with their own women, could not afford enough time to truly console me.

Of course the thought of taking my own life didn't take long to rear it's ugly head. I pushed it out, recognizing that getting so upset over a girl was as ridiculous as a Cubs game. But it came back. Time after time, different ideas for how I could dispose of myself would come out of nowhere. The ideas became progressively more elaborate. I would not take the simple ways out like a note. I also did not want to burden my family, even if it was just my mom and sister, with what my uncle had done to his family. I resolved to take my own life in a way that it could not look like suicide. Comparatively, it would be much more settling for me to be murdered.

It took me six months to find a legitimate number without raising eyebrows, but in November I was finally on the phone with just the man I needed. He would not conduct any official business over an open line, however, and instructed me to meet a local Chinese restaurant. Over dinner, for which he covered me, I slipped him a manilla envelope. I assured him that the envelope contained exactly what I wanted it to, including the five thousand dollar deposit. The second half was to be paid after the hit. Such was apparently standard operating procedure in the industry. I did not have enough in my savings for the entire second half, but I figured it wouldn't matter, since I would not be alive to concern myself with it. The portfolio in the manilla envelop was my own. I had placed a bounty on my own head.

For a week, my sleep depravation actually improved. I felt like the Meghan chapter of my life had concluded with me resolving to end myself. Just that knowledge gave the peace I needed to finally get over her. Once I realize this, however, I became one of the nine in ten. I was plummeting to the ground trying to will myself out of hitting it. But a week had gone by with no sign of trouble. I resolved that the hitman had likely opened the envelope after I left the restaurant, realized the irony of the situation and taken me for a joke. Either that or he realized that with his client dead, he would never get the second half of his payment. Might as well take off with the first half.

I would have contacted the man again to call him off, but suicidal me was one stop ahead. When I passed off my portfolio, I had also gotten rid of any information that would allow me to get ahold of my hired killer.

Another week passed. And another. I certainly tried to keep an eye out of any suspicious activity, but as time passed, I no longer felt like I was walking on eggshells. There were even whole hours where I forgot I was in the middle of a muddled suicide attempt.

It was during one of these hours that I was watching television, alone in my apartment, when my living room door flew open and I heard a silences handgun fire at my recliner. I bolted down the hallway, trying to calm him off without looking back.

"I've been trying to get ahold of you," I cried frantically. "The job is off. I can get you the other five grand..." I dove into my bedroom and slammed the door shut. "...but you don't need to kill anyone." I realized what I said. "You don't need to kill me."

Another shot went straight through the door and whizzed past my head. I locked the door, more for the sake of ritual than any actual feeling of reassurance. My eyes darted across my room. Hiding would do no good. There was no where he wouldn't find me. I heard him start beating the door handle with what sounded like the butt of his gun. With each failed attempt to bust through, I would hear him grunt and then inhale to brace for another impact. I could not believe just a few weeks ago I'd had such a civil conversation with this man over Chinese.

My eyes, blurry from tears, landed on the window. I didn't know if the sixth floor was high enough to kill me, but frankly that wasn't my main concern. I was just determined to get away from the maniac grunting behind the door. I gathered myself to my feet and dove straight through the glass.

The man was a professional. He had never been caught by authorities for a previous hit, and wasn't about to begin now. He quickly covered up any trace of his having been in my apartment. Furthermore, he placed a pre-made note on my pillow saying "To my family- I am sorry."

In answer to my previous query, no. I do not believe falling from the sixth floor of my apartment building was enough to kill me. Hitting my head on a fire hydrant upon impact... that is enough to kill me. And my last thoughts as I fell were not "I don't want to die." No, in that sense, I guess I am the one in ten. My last thought was, "Damn that statistic."