Another Way Out

"There is only one way out and I am going to research it."

I came across those chilling words the other day, written by a troubled young man 20 years ago this week, and found them all the more disturbing for one reason: I was the teenager who wrote them.

We were in a new place, a cold and lonely place, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of winter. I was 16. All my friends were far away. I had no job,no license, no social life. I felt useless, hopeless and miserable.

But the closest that I came to suicide was to write those words. I toughed it out for another year at home, with the peace of the Northwest forest and the misty Puget Sound to calm my torment, then endured one horrible summer in military training camp -- and then it all changed. I reached my nadir, my absolute midnight, watching the waves roll onto the sand of New Jersey, holding heavy military boots in my hand that would help me walk out into the water and not return -- but I did not take that walk. The morning came. I made it through training. I returned home. I got my driver's license. And then college opened up a whole new world.

My story had a happy ending, a new dawn. I ache for the millions of people, young and old, who hurt so badly that they never make it to sunrise. You see, I was so wrong: there is always another way out. Sometimes it takes a while to arrive, but it is worth the pain and worth the wait.

A heartache

From the local news:

The body of a young man was found in the **** river, near **** bridge, last weekend. The person was wearing glasses and a red dress. Foul play is not believed to have been a factor. The possibility of suicide is being investigated.

Oh, young man, my heart aches
for the loss of you
for the loss to the world
for the pain you must have suffered
for the loneliness you must have felt.

Did you keep your secret locked inside
until it became too much to bear?
Or did you try to live out your feelings
in a world that does not understand?

We are all kinds:
believers and wonderers
sunburned tillers of the soil
and dancers in smoky clubs
guys in grimy Levis
girls in glossy gowns
and others for whom their assigned gender role
is like the bars of a cage
is like barbed wire.

You had life to live
You had value like gold
like shining silver
like pearls
like wheat under the prairie sun
like water cool and vital.

We have lost you
too young.