Front Porch: Single bullet rips through entire family
The Spokesman Record | Stephanie Pettit
World Suicide Prevention Day is observed Sept. 10. In the most tragic of ironies, it was on that very day one year ago that our 14-year-old grandnephew Declan took his own life.
In the intervening year across the country, 4,600 other young people ages 10-24 have killed themselves. The vast majority, 81 percent, have been male, with the leading cause the use of a firearm (Declan’s choice), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I have come to understand that in the moment that they do this thing, these young people cannot see past their own pain, anger, injury, indignity, depression or whatever conglomeration of circumstances made them believe suicide was the only possible solution for them. In their young, still-forming brains, if they thought of their families at all, it was likely with either an “I’ll show them†mentality or “they’ll be better off without me.†But I suspect they never get that far in their thought process.
I wish there were some way they could get a glimpse of what those who love them will experience with that gunshot, the totality of what they are destroying, how the pain is just beginning for everyone else. If Declan could have envisioned his mother sitting at the hospital for days with his body as it was being prepared for organ donation or witnessed the tears his father still sheds often in the quiet of the family living room. If these young people could see, just for a few seconds, what comes afterward, maybe, just maybe, they would stay with us.
Declan was a regular kind of kid with no apparent issues â€" other than those facing boys trying to navigate their way from childhood to manhood â€" and with parents who loved him and supported his interests. Yet he chose to leave. His mother, Wendy, has been endeavoring to find out what drove him, following any clues or hints she comes across.
World Suicide Prevention Day is observed Sept. 10. In the most tragic of ironies, it was on that very day one year ago that our 14-year-old grandnephew Declan took his own life.
In the intervening year across the country, 4,600 other young people ages 10-24 have killed themselves. The vast majority, 81 percent, have been male, with the leading cause the use of a firearm (Declan’s choice), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I have come to understand that in the moment that they do this thing, these young people cannot see past their own pain, anger, injury, indignity, depression or whatever conglomeration of circumstances made them believe suicide was the only possible solution for them. In their young, still-forming brains, if they thought of their families at all, it was likely with either an “I’ll show them†mentality or “they’ll be better off without me.†But I suspect they never get that far in their thought process.
I wish there were some way they could get a glimpse of what those who love them will experience with that gunshot, the totality of what they are destroying, how the pain is just beginning for everyone else. If Declan could have envisioned his mother sitting at the hospital for days with his body as it was being prepared for organ donation or witnessed the tears his father still sheds often in the quiet of the family living room. If these young people could see, just for a few seconds, what comes afterward, maybe, just maybe, they would stay with us.
Declan was a regular kind of kid with no apparent issues â€" other than those facing boys trying to navigate their way from childhood to manhood â€" and with parents who loved him and supported his interests. Yet he chose to leave. His mother, Wendy, has been endeavoring to find out what drove him, following any clues or hints she comes across.
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