The Shadow

There I lay on my bed, enjoying a rare afternoon's rest, and now, some tunes. I could see the ceiling reflected in the back of my iPod as its resting place, my chest, rose and fell. I remained there, refusing to engage. My mind, in this idle state, brought to the fore things not often thought about in the midst of turbulent living.

I recalled a conversation I had with the daughter of a "customer". I was helping her to access a picture of her father on her family website that would be used in his obituary. The background on the homepage was a rather striking photo of a picket fence, lush green grass and shrubs, and the shadow of three people, shoulder to shoulder. This lady volunteered that the photo had been taken on their first vacation without her daughter. I asked what happened to her daughter. She continued to stare at the monitor; I thought at first that she hadn't heard me. She had.

"She took her own life," she said, poorly holding back her emotion on this subject. At the same time, I was sorrowful and also glad to have asked the question. I like to know these things, not for some sadistic pleasure, but just to know what experiences make the people I meet who they are. I don't enjoy making someone feel uncomfortable or dredging up old sorrows, yet at times it needs to be done. There's the Swedish proverb: “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”

"She was fifteen."

What could be so pressing, so sorrowful in the life of a beautiful teenage girl that she would do this? I don't know. I can't fathom what might have been going on in her life. Some type of failure or denial? Spurned love? Rejection or ridicule? All temporary problems.

Sadly enough, it wasn't the first time I had experienced this scenario professionally. I recall a young woman, early twenties, who did the same thing. The report was that it was a work-related situation that pushed her to the point of killing herself. Again, a temporary problem.

What I thought about was this: Could the positive influence of one person injecting worth into their life have drawn them back from the precipice? Could one friendship, one word of encouragement from someone, friend or stranger, have made the difference? Possibly not, yet very possibly so.

If so, then I want that word to come from me. At least once in my life, I want to be that person. I don't want to know about it either; I don't want to know that my attentions have had such an effect. I just want to live my life in such a way that those things naturally come out. I want it to be borne out of a sensitivity and love for people who need to know unconditional love in some way, at least once in their life.

"We love because he first loved us."  ~  I John 4:19