HOME ~~~ NEXT
THEN AND NOW: REFLECTIONS ON DEATH


For the first time in my life, I do not feel that someone who had the nerve to kill themself was lucky. I feel horrible for the people that knew him and loved him, and wish that I had known him better so that maybe I could have done something, although I know there is probably nothing that I could have done. When I first heard, I felt sick. The way they said it over the announcements didn't help matters at all. "I'm sorry to inform you that last night Ryan Tasker had an untimely meeting with death." You can't try to poeticise something like that. I wanted to cry, to have some sort of release for the emotions that I've felt for years and finally realised. All day I wondered how he could have done it. I know I've been there, holding the knife and seriously contemplating it. At one point in my life I would have been jealous of Ryan, but not today, I have too much to live for. And so did he, even if he didn't realise it. I think back to when Jay, another guy that I didn't know very well but always wished I had, killed himself, and how I had cried when that happened, out of sympathy for his friends, but not for him. I wished that I had been in his place. But I soon came to realise that if it had been me that had killed myself, there would not have been the crowd that Jay had for my memorial service. I wouldn't even have a memorial service, outside the funeral. I truly believed I had no hope, so I never noticed when it dwindled even more than it had already, and I noticed even less when it returned, until one day, there it was, ready to help me through whatever I encountered. Why couldn't Ryan have found that? I hate seeing people cry, expescially out of the frustration and grieving that suicide brings onto people. I never believed most of Ryan's friends were even capable of crying until I saw them do it. But life goes on. It feels like the world should stop, at least to acknowledge the fact that one of our own, someone's child, someone's friend, someone that was something to everyone, has passed. But it doesn't, it never will. The world would be constantly silent if we had to stop and reflect on every passing of another. It still frustrates me to see everyone laughing and smiling and going on with everything, even though they know and realise what has happened. And I find myself doing it too. I had to remind myself a few times through the day when I felt myself forgetting. And then the sick feeling would return and somehow that would make me feel better. I cried, which is unusual for me. I thought about who Ryan was. I tried to remember everything he had ever said to me. I remebered helping him and his girlfriend at the time in photography and how they had both been really nice to me then. I remember seeing Ryan a few other times. New Years Eve. That was just a few days ago, and I guess he seemed normal enough, happy enough, but I didn't know him, and I don't claim to have known him. I would never say I was his friend, but I at least respected him as a human being. Whatever it was that made you, Ryan, commit this crime against yourself, if somehow this can get to you, I want you to know that even though it may have seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and who knows, maybe it was, I do not hate you for it, and I still respect you as a human being even though I'll never see you again. My only anger is the pain you've caused others. No action goes without reprecussions, espescially one so final as this. And my final wish for you, Ryan, is to find some greater love and state of being in wherever it is that you have gone to, and for that somehow to find it's way to us, to let us know that you are still alright, and you forgive us for what we have done as much as we have to forgive you for what you have done. That is all,
Good-bye Ryan.
HOME ~~~ NEXT