Illustrations by Joel Benjamin
This is an acknowledgment of a man I never met, never knew, perhaps never even saw (or if I saw him I didn't know it was him). The only thing I know about this man is that he lived across the street from me, three houses down, on the second floor of a two-story house, and that he killed himself last Sunday.
It was my neighbors who told me. They had come to pick up their dog, who plays with my dog.
"He shot himself about an hour ago," they said. "You didn't hear it?"
"No," I said.
I looked out the window, down the street, and could see the red glow of a fire truck and the blue glow of a cop car. Later, when I went out to walk my dog, the fire truck had gone but the cop car was still there: Its lights still flashing noiselessly.
Fucking idiots, I thought, about the crowd of people who stood on the sidewalk, rubbernecking the house.
But then I too stopped to look, just like them. All of the lights were on inside and I could easily see in the windows. I stopped every three feet of the walk to see it from every angle until it was way behind me. On the way back I stopped a lot too.
I could see a number of plants inside, healthy and big. I thought, He took really good care of his plants. Outside of the house still hung a holiday wreath. It seemed sad and strange to me that he had made an effort to get one.
On the porch were what looked like wind chimes. It dawned on me that I never thought anyone with wind chimes would kill themselves. I could also see, through the window, a big set of ugly, orange plaid curtains. They were nothing I would ever choose and made me feel that the man was different than me, that we had nothing in common. I don't know why it was the curtains that separated us, though that's what did it.
But later, I began to feel eerily less separate. I felt sorrow for his suffering. I wondered what kind of emotional and psychological darkness he had been living in that he felt as though he had no other choice. I know darkness. Perhaps there are 100,000 forms of darkness, 100,000 forms of what they call depression. I know one or two of them.
Some people describe depression as a sadness. Others define it as a total lack of feeling. For me, depression is best described as a terror: a terror both of living and dying. It is a terror of dying so intense that it makes life unlivable. It is a terror of dying so nauseating that it makes me want to be dead.
I can also describe it as a screaming and a suffocating: a shrieking inside my head and a heavy tightness in my chest. If I had to guess at the cause of the shrieking, I would say that it is because nothing makes any sense. I would say that it is a scream into nothingness and a scream about nothingness. Sometimes it's loud and terrifying. During those phases I feel as though reality has no bottom. There is no context upon which to hang any other thing. Other times I do not hear it at all. I forget about it. I build a bottom out of bullshit, or I build it out of meaningful shit, or the right person says the right thing, or my meds are adjusted, or something just changes, and the bottom, thankfully, magically appears.
The following day, I told a friend of mine how upset I was about this stranger's death.
"Don't project," the friend said. "You don't know his story. You've said yourself that there are times when it's understandable for a person to end their life. Maybe he had cancer?"
This made me feel better, though I don't know why. If he had cancer, he was still suffering. There is no suffering scale, no way to compare the suffering of one human being, or one illness, to the suffering of another. And yet, for whatever reason, it made me feel better to think that he had cancer.
We are told that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Surely I have seen my own episodes of suicidal ideation, and those of many others, wax and wane. I have spoken with a lot of people over the years who survived their attempts and are now grateful to be alive. But ultimately, I have no idea how much pain my neighbor was in. I don't know whether he might have been OK if he had just hung on one more day or how much he had already been through. I don't know what he could or should endure. I know nothing.
I don't think it is my place to tell anyone to be "strong," as though those who take their lives are weak. I don't think it is my place to call the living among us brave. I am not brave. I never asked to be brave.
Now when I walk my dog, I don't look inside the windows. Someone has left the lights on in his house and it scares me. From my kitchen and living room windows I can see right in there. I keep my curtains closed.
I feel haunted, as though the ghost of this man is watching me. Why would he haunt me? Perhaps he is angry that I've stayed alive. Perhaps it is survivor's guilt.
My friends tell me to burn sage: in front of my house, in my windows and on the street. But I can't burn sage inside me. Sage will not remove what has always lived deeply inside of me—that which is only reflected by my imagined experience of this man.
All that I can do is say to this man and to myself, and perhaps to all of us: I am sorry for your suffering. Please forgive me for everything. Thank you for your life. I love you.
So Sad Today: Personal Essays will be released in March from Grand Central Publishing. Pre-order it here.
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