Dear Death—F**k you.
From the Editors of CakeTrain Journal.
Whenever my brother and I go fishing with our dad it never fails, one of us—usually me—catch a channel cat and have to perform an emergency tonsillectomy. How else can the hook be retrieved when it’s that far in? Pliers in hand, I’d reach into the cat’s throat and start probing and pulling. “Don’t worry if you break it,” our dad would say. “I got plenty of Charlie Bendry hooks.”
Everyone in Charlie Bendry’s tight circle of friends probably still has those hooks; Charlie was my grandfather’s fishing partner. He claimed to have found a deal in some hunting and fishing catalogue and ordered enough hooks to last several lifetimes. Twenty-some years ago he allegedly became upset over not being able to fix his FarmAll tractor so he grabbed his loaded shotgun and walked behind his barn. His wife found his body the next morning.
Although I don’t recall seeing him laid out, I do remember my parent’s neighbor’s son’s funeral which, unlike Charlie, wasn’t the result of some spur of the moment decision. Who could forget two caskets in the parlor—head to head—husband and wife? Due to the husband’s debilitating illness the couple decided to dress in their Sunday finest and embrace while waiting for the carbon monoxide poisoning to overtake their bodies. Deliberate. Planned. Their frustration, if it existed, masked, hidden. A suicide note left behind.
Then there’s my former student, Prisoner Coley. I had warned him about clowning around in my classroom. “Keep sticking your nose where it don’t belong and sooner or later someone’s gonna get tired of your bullshit.” He supposedly hung himself—but not in that typical Hollywood fashion everyone thinks of. He simply cut off his airway by tying a sheet around his neck and the frame of his cot. There were no dangling feet. Just Coley, flat on his back with his chin tucked in and the sheet taut. Class clown one minute; dead inmate the next.
No matter how hard you try, some hooks you just can’t pull out.
22 comments:
I can relate suicide to hooks. It is sad but true and unexpected. In my short lifetime I lost 4 friends toe suicide. Close friends (maybe wrong friend cycle)
Anyway. I think the reason for Suicide is so deep inside you - like you said with the hooks - does not matter what you do you will not get it out.
It is sad but true..
Shame death is death....final....most people committing suicide don't realize it in its full force....I also lost people to suicide, you will always think if only I knew.....we all get our life dealt...the cards might be really shitty, but we need to just do what we have to do.
Thanks for comment JR. And yes that topic don't need a language. You are spot on...
awwww...that was sad..
i really hate the word suicidal,its so common here in Japan,too.mostly junior high school students or sometimes the dean or the prof..
let me say it with you...
dear death,***k you!
When I was doing my first year psyc,I read something that makes one understand people and their reactions so much better.
I basically explained that realisty was subject to the person experiencing it.
Different thing affect people differently
Beautiful last line, Jim. I love the image of the couple dressed up for their end. Disturbing and lovely.
From what I've witnessed people either spread the pain or internalize it. Either way I most definitely enjoy the "Fuck you, Death" sentiment.
Sometimes we're born with the hooks already in us.
some folk have to do what they gotta do...
as usual though, it's those that remain that suffer, the dead are past caring...
oh, and thanks for the visit :)
There are also some hooks you don't want to pull out. All of them make us who we are - good ones or bad ones.
Why are we compelled to do the things we do? Why are you compelled to write....certainly don't want to yank on that hook.
Great post. Like the hook.MW
Well written post. Nice turn of the word. I agree with Charles G. that some are born with the hooks already in them. Trick is to recognize it and then ease it out or pull it out or may just have to live or die with it. Donnetta
Jim, Good story. It is interesting that people can be hooked on suicide that leads to their death. --Bro, Ron
My best friend Jim calls suicide a permanant solution to a temporary problem.
About 9 years ago, a good friend committed suicide at the age of 25. I found out later that he'd been hiding a heroin habit, and that his girlfriend, who'd been trying to get him away from his "drug friends" had given him an ultimatum-- the drugs or her. She left the house and he shot himself. I was devastated-- if I'd have known, I would have tried to intervene, and tried to get him to get some help.
It's a sad thing when a person feels that there only way out of a situation is to take their own life. In some terrible moments of my life, I would wish that I could die just to relieve the pain of the moment, but these are just thoughts in a desperate moment in time that pass almost as soon as they enter my mind. In a short amount of time, the terrible moment passes and things start to get better. I think people that commit suicide act on those thoughts of desperation during a terrible time in their life. The sad part is, if they would have just let those thoughts pass without acting on them, there life too would begin to see better days, but instead, because of one desperate act, their life is cut short and their pain is transferred to the ones they left behind.
JR, good "hook". The husband of a friend of mine suffered from depression and he finally committed suicide by carbon monoxide. I guess you could also call chronic depression a hook that you can't pull out, couldn't you?
Sad story about Prisoner Coley.
Josie
Jim, I enjoy the randomness of your vagaries as you call them. This is a powerful post. I’ve been thinking about it over my morning cup of coffee.
In 1986, when I was teaching in Iowa, my principal slipped a note to me as I spoke to my class. One of my student's father had shot himself dead out in their barn.(My student did not yet know.) Like Charlie, he was a farmer. The mid-80's were particularly hard on them.
The Mash theme may say “Suicide is painless,” but is should say “Suicide is selfish.” In many cases, it seems like a person is saying, “In this one moment, I matter more than anything else and I’ll prove it.”
My student's father was not thinking about his wife and two children; he was thinking about himself, unable to see beyond that day.
I’m no expert on the subject, but in our "self-esteem" world, suicide is sometimes labeled self-loathing when it's really "self obsession" --the inability to think beyond one's self--temporary or chronic delusion that at least part of the world should revolve around us.
Thoughts of suicide are more common among creative individuals. (We could all name dozens of poets and authors to took their own lives.) I think writers, musicians, artists, etc. are wired a little bit differently. We are more sensitive to the human condition. Our need to connect is more acute and likewise our sense of disconnection (or irrelevance) is more painful. This fear of isolation or rejection can stem from a demand to be accepted unconditionally, which ironically in turn becomes a condition for whether we include others in our world. The bitterness of isolation becomes a self-fulfilled cycle--there's that word again: “self."
I'm sure each case is different, but at the heart of my limited experience on this subject I see a void that cannot be met by "self.” Hope comes not from demanding it from others but by putting others first (as modeled by one who put OTHERS before HIMself). Life is not a box of BBs spilled. No man lives to himself and no man dies to himself.
More thoughts on this at:
http://patternsofink.blogspot.com/2006/05/on-having-no-regrets.html
Great post!
Brutal. Proving once again there's more than one way to skin a catfish.
Very sad post. People can sometimes commit suicide for the strangest of reasons. My friend's mom took her life to get back at her husband, who had emotionally abused her for years. She bypassed the option of divorce with a chance to live happily in favor of revenge.
Very sad post. People can sometimes commit suicide for the strangest of reasons. My friend's mom took her life to get back at her husband, who had emotionally abused her for years. She bypassed the option of divorce with a chance to live happily in favor of revenge.
Hey Jim, I think I still have some of those Charlie Bendry hooks!!!!! --Bro, Ron
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