The Ultimate Answer? Hardly:

It was twenty years, or more, ago when I read the book on Depression by Don Baker and Emery Nester. Don was a busy and "successful" pastor. Emery helped him climb out of a near fatal depression. I can still feel my stomach tightening when I think about a conversation that Baker had with a counselor after he was hospitalized for depression. He had been thinking about killing himself; that was one reason he was now in a place where others could protect him from himself. In excruciating detail the counselor pulled out the plans Baker had. How would he do it? Where? When? Then the the counselor took him where he didn't want to go.

"Who would find you?" the counselor probed.
You can imagine where the conversation went from there. As he saw in his mind's eye, his sweet daughter discovering his deed, Baker begged his interrogator to stop, but he wouldn't. He wanted this loving man to know that suicide is not the end, not for the loved ones left behind. (The quotes are from my memory, not the book.)
I saw some of that pain recently as I looked into the eyes of a friend. A classmate of hers--she sang at the wedding--had taken his life. My friend's relationship with the man who so tragically died is several steps removed from the closest of attachments, yet the pain is real. How much greater when the connection is described by words like, parent, son, daughter, sibling, spouse, or closest of friends.

Arthur Miller said in "A View From the Bridge," "A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that's what it's for!"


Maybe more.


It is the living who have to pick up the pieces and go on. They are left with the "What if?"s. Perhaps that is not the immediate intention of the person who takes their own life. It is the reality. All of us on this side of the grave need to take note of the fact. Like it, or want it, or not, all of us are part of a fabric of relationships.
"[N]ot one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself." (Romans 14:7)




I'm not even going into what awaits the person who takes her/his life on the other side. Right now I'm just thinking of those left on this side. To take one's own life:
is not brave, or heroic.
isn't the result of living life honestly. (No one faced life in this world more squarely than King Solomon; look at his conclusion at the end of Ecclesiastes.)
is not the only alternative. There is hope.
is not autonomous. Others will be drastically affected.
is not the right thing to do!
For those, like my friend who, are dealing with that final act of selfishness, I have great sympathy. I am aware that your loved one may have had to deal with demons that I know not of. My goal is not speak ill of the dead. Rather it is to encourage the living to go on.
Look at those who love you.
There is good reason to find help.


It's STTA.