I read the obituaries mostly because my Mum read the obits and I’m carrying on the tradition. The other day I read where a friend just lost her granddaughter to Ewing’s Sarcoma. When we saw her at lunch today, we could express our grief and condolences.
Today, I saw in the paper an obituary for an AA friend with 39 years sobriety. The obit read “went out his own way”. Oddly phrased, unless the deceased committed suicide, which he did. My buddy H, a mutual friend, had lunch with this guy, DC, the day before he died. No indication of a problem was perceptible.
I’d known DC since I came into the rooms. We weren’t that close. Still when I can count on seeing somebody at meetings for twenty five years and he consistently comes across as one of the “adults in the room”, it’s a shock.
Makes me want to engage in chocolate therapy.
If something is getting to you, get help. Don’t stop till you feel better. Please, you matter to people, no matter how worthless you think you are.
Dispatches From Dystopia 
I’m so sorry, David! 😦
Thank you. The saying is you will step over a lot of bodies if you stay a round long enough, but nobody saw this one. It was horrible. He left long notes to his children.
Suicide is a special kind of heartbreak. Unfortunately with the work I did for so many years, I saw a lot of it. More than any one person should.
Stay strong and do all the self care you need!!
Talk about it, Write about it. Eat chocolate if it helps. Suicide is damaging and hurtful on more levels than any other death. I’m here.♥
In the field, it’s commonly called silent “permission” to any others who may be suffering or contemplating.
Yes. He was close to another recovering alcoholic, my former sister-in-law. It was not a sexual relationship. She abruptly broke off contact a couple of years ago. I always thought she was being cruel. Now, maybe she saw something in him that she couldn’t deal with.
We went to the peach orchard. It was great. Beautiful view if like cities in the Blue Ridge Mountains.