Today I came uncommonly close to witnessing a suicide. Maybe.
The situation is not worth recounting.
What I am thinking about now is my reaction to it.
I have been near people who are dying of diseases that tear them apart or whittle them down to the last dredges of life and then suddenly, but with every possible warning, take them into death entirely.
But I have never in my life seen a perfectly healthy human being step intentionally off of that cliff. It happens all of the time, and at the very least, I count myself lucky.
Today as I stood at the bottom of a building--anticipating the screams, waiting the slow turn of a torso in midair, fearing the vision of a body broken by choice, broken among a crowd of young men and women, broken and bleeding and completely without life--as I stood at the bottom of this building, I shook and I prayed, and I hoped for the best.
And that was the best I could do.
Death is all around. Its slow and steady cut grazes over our heads, and inspired poets write their lovers immortally into verse. Its quiet form towers over our cities and our barren places, and we the people of the world are sitting below it, aware somehow that we are in a great shadow.
What could it possibly have meant, this event that passed quickly through my morning and was gone before the afternoon settled warmly over us?
I am not suddenly faced with my own death. Fear has no place there for me. I believe that life continues, maybe even really begins, after death deals its blow.
But I will not stop living this life now. I cannot say if it is stubbornness, hard heartedness, craziness, or pure love--something keeps me moving forward.
Today the sun is pure and unabashed.
Today, like every day until it is my turn to step into that dark mystery, I choose life.
