Last week, I received a text message from our senior teacher asking us to leave early to avoid heavier traffic. I always leave the house early to make sure I get to work on time, regardless of the traffic situation. But this time, it was different. Traffic was supposed to be heavier. Why?
Because of a jumper.
Apparently, an unidentified woman from the next building jumped to her death. The situation caused heavy traffic along Ortigas because the police were trying to clear the area. They asked vehicles to detour to avoid the scene. There was nothing more they could do but to clean the place where she landed.
I honestly didn’t know whether I would believe the message or not. It was a business district. It was hard to imagine someone killing himself in the area. Still, my initial reaction was, “Seriously?!” I was thinking about how much traffic this person had caused, I don’t like being late for work. But after getting off on our building’s street, I was starting to wonder if someone really did jump or if it was just an attempt or a hoax. The person allegedly jumped from the building next to ours. I didn’t want to see or step on any blood, brain, or leftover intestines on the sidewalk. I was praying and walking carefully along the sidewalk, hoping to NOT see any human body parts or leftovers. I tried listening to the bystanders chatting, hoping for any update on the incident. I got my answer. A couple of construction workers were talking about the incident, making jokes about the “woman” who jumped. It was true. It did happen.
Someone took her own life.
After hearing the bystanders’ comments, jokes, and self-righteous lectures about the incident, I felt utter disgust. This was a person. A woman, at that. Who, for whatever reason, felt like life was no longer worth living. And these people were trying to be smarter, better (or so they think) than this dead woman. Who are they to think that way? Do they know what this poor woman was going through? Was feeling?
NO.
Suicide is never the answer to whatever life throws at us. God will never give us something we cannot overcome. But these still do not give us the right to say things about this woman we don’t know. We don’t know what she was going through; we don’t know how long she’s been feeling this pain, suffering; we don’t know what pushed her to this extreme. People easily lecture other people on what they should and shouldn’t do, even if they haven’t experienced it themselves. They easily judge the behavior of others without asking why this person is behaving the way he is.
A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading a book entitled 13 Reasons Why. It was about a girl who committed suicide, leaving behind 13 reasons that pushed her into making that decision. It wasn’t a story about a girl who just commits suicide. It was about what drove her to that extreme. Suicide is not something a person just does. There’s nothing spontaneous about it. It is the result of tens, of hundreds, of thousands of reasons that eventually make a person feel that there is no way out but it. People don’t just wake up and say, “Hey, I’m feeling blue. I’m going to kill myself.” People live through days of torment and suffering until they can no longer bear the pain of it all. After the deed is done, that’s when people start talking. “Why didn’t he tell anyone? Why didn’t he talk to anyone? Why did he keep it to himself and let it eat him?”
The question should be, “Why didn’t anyone listen?”
It’s easy for people to be self-righteous, know-it-alls, and the better person. But the truth is, they are no better than the one who took his own life. They ask all these questions, judging the jumper or pill taker or slasher, wondering why they didn’t ask for help, but the bigger question is, why didn’t they make the first move to help? If there are signs all around, why wait ’til it’s too late?
What these people don’t know is that sometimes, these people do talk. Sometimes, they make themselves so obvious to the point that they were practically screaming, “I’m going to kill myself!” No one just bothers to listen. It’s easier to blame the victim than to actually admit that I could’ve done something to stop it.
Anyway, that was just an example of yet another slightly failed venture. It’s not that it didn’t turn out good, cause it did. It was more of, how could it not be close to perfect when I had everything prepared from the beginning? *sigh* I’m not a perfectionist but I guess my planning skills aren’t really, well..
when pigs & penguins fly.. 