I make no apology for the stark image that I usedd on the Village Notice Board. There will scarcely be one of you reading this who hasn't been affected by the untimely, premature death of someone you know or love by their own hand. You may have known someone who has been the one left behind and helped them come to terms with that loss.
For those who are left behind the emotion, the sense of loss, of grief and guilt is almost indescribable, as indeed, each one is different in just about every way.
But the point is that each death and each grieving process is almost entirely avoidable.
There are those who will say with almost callous disregard for the victim that they are "Just being selfish". Yet if you speak to anyone who has attempted suicide and been lucky enough to have survived, they will tell you that to experience an understanding of selfishness you must first be aware of the world around them and their place in it. Yet everyone of them will also tell you that they had no concept of the world around them nor their place in it, at the moment they tried to kill themselves. They truly felt that the world would be better off without them and their passing would be the best for everyone. For them, at that moment they had no understanding of anything beyond and so could have no concept of the affect their actions would have had on the world they left behind.
They would also tell you that they are glad that their attempt failed and that they are (sometimes eventually) always glad to have a second chance to see those that they love again.
It was not their fault that they found themselves in that dark and empty space. It was ours! Yours and mine! We were not their for them!
Is one day, one week, enough to make the difference or just assuage our conciences? Actually, one minute, at the right moment, will be enough to turn someone's life around. Is your life too busy to pick up the phone and call a friend you think might be struggling? Will it cost anything at all to smile at a stranger? Yet that alone may make the difference to that poor soul in the very moment that they needed it most.
I ask you not to give generously to a cause, nor make arrangements for an event to draw attention to the cause. But to each one, make someones life just that little bit better each day.