The Fragile Thread of Being

And the ripples of suicide

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The first time suicide entered into my life, it was only as an echo. He was the loose friend of a friend and a young man I’d never before met. I’m not sure our paths ever once crossed. He and I shared little more than a couple of mutual Facebook connections in common.

His name was Dalton and he killed himself at only fourteen years old. I use his real name because I reason that — if his loved ones should ever find my words — they might take some solace in knowing the echoes reached this far… that the ripples of his loss are still felt all these years later.

I can’t remember how I first heard the news of his passing. It might have been a whisper down the hall of my middle school. Maybe it was only conveyed in a text. But I remember what I did when I sat down again at a computer screen.

Unsure what could ever drive a person to take their own life, I visited his Facebook page. And there, draped across his digital wall were the agonized words of a hundred different mourners. Most seemed unsure of what could have driven this jovial teen to bring a swift end to his own existence. Some of the commenters were only his age; they speculated as children do. At young ages, we don’t have the diplomacy to handle this sort of news.

As we grow older, suicide hardly grows easier to accept. We skirt around abrasive realities with unbecoming euphemisms. We struggle with the difficult conversations.

I didn’t know how to feel reading the words of the hundreds touched by his warm presence. I don’t know his warmth from memory, but through the distant words of these grieving strangers, I could tell that he was kind and lively and funny and unique. So many of the things I so rarely expect from those who take their own life.

Before leaving his page, I sent Dalton a friend request. Not because I thought it would be his finger clicking accept — but just in the loose hope that some loved one on the other side of that binary barrier might see it and click that button. Even if it was too late.

Thirteen years later, I still check Dalton’s page from time to time. People still wish him happy birthdays and tell him how much they miss him — how much they wish they could have one final talk. They lament the life he’s missed. And thirteen years later, my friend request still sits there — unattended in a virtual void.

I’m not sure I knew why I friended him — if I understood my morose desire to learn more. Part of me just wanted to learn every detail I could; what exactly was it that could make life so painful that it was worth leaving the world behind forever?