An Awkward Conversation

She came over and settled down into the couch next to me. For a while, we ambled over comfortable subjects and revisited topics that we had hashed out long ago. Then she mentioned an acquaintance that I had met when I first moved to the Springs.

"Remember Nate?"

"Yeah, he was one of Teddy's friends right? Glasses, dark brown hair..."

"Yeah, that's him. Well...," There was a long pause as she shifted uncomfortably, "He died Jamie, about 2 weeks ago."

I swallowed hard and hurriedly looked away. What do you say when you knew someone only as an acquaintance? The last time I saw him was at church and even then I had a hard time placing his face with some other place else that I knew well.

"How?"

She sighed. "It was suicide"

Multiple questions flooded my brain. "Was there a note? Was he depressed? When was the funeral? How does Teddy feel?"

But for some reason I couldn't ask any of them. The questions ran from my brain and trickled into my heart.

Whenever people die, it's a shock, a suprise. It feels as if they are suddenly snatched away and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

But suicide's different. The person chooses to end their life. And while it's a shock and suprise to those around the victim, there's also an overwhelming sense of guilt.

A sense of guilt that in some possible way we could have done something to stop it.

I didn't know Nate well, but the guilt is still there.