I so..... Know what you mean
 

I had this friend who was from Plymouth Ma.

we met out in California (a friend of a friend there)
knowing i was from Mass we became great friends....

He used to repair type writers for a living
and as that industry crashed completely
with the advent of computer word processors
his life was nearly over...that and he had really
bad ankles Both of them actually...

One Day he asked my wife and i to go on a ride...
we did and we had a super great time....laughed alot
and had a very memorable occasion...unforgettable!

Then he left southern Cal and returned back home to plymouth
where i later learned he had pinned a note to his self
and turned on the gas..... ending his life.

he wasn't about to spend the rest of his days in a wheel chair
is all i can figure ...that.... and his career had ended.

i quite often remember that ride we took as it was later
that i totally realized it was all pre meditated.

It was His way of Saying Good-bye :uhuh:

One of my friends just got on Boston Police dive team. Fantastic job for about 95% of the time. Lots of training, ride around on a boat all day, go diving. It's the other 5% of the time, you're pulling bodies out of a quarry.

Yes they do think about the people they leave behind and many times that is exactly why they did it to begin with. It is the ultimate form of control. It is without question the most selfish act a human being can commit. It is the "I'll get them stupity at its worse". People committ suicide where they either loved to be or where tyhey hated where they were. Most often it is where they hated to be.

My brother-in-law on a personel note, other than my on-duty experiences spent two with with his sister, my wife, and his three kids at the Mount Desert Island Campground back in 1995. It was a joyfilled two weeks. He was in the process of getting a divorce, and he new the kid would go to the mother. He was out sick from his job, due to depression, because of everything that had been going on. I am still pissed at him for this. The day he got home from the camping trip, August 23rd, with us, he dated and started writing the suicide note. I and his sister, had just spent an enormous amount of money, which was no big deal on him and his kids, my nieces and nephew. We talked and talked and talked. His brother talked with him just about every day. We took a gun away a few months prior to this vacation just in case. He had no money to purchase another one. A gunshop in Maine sold him a gun on credit the first week in December. He killed himself December 15th. The note dated August 23rd was on the table bside the bed. He did it then to make the biggest impact on his soon to be ex-wife, his kids, and the rest of the family.

I have seen this professionally so many times, I never lost any sleep over, regardless how it happened. Yes, you do get used to it Westhavendave. When it happens within your own family you dont ever get over it. My wife agreed to handle his affairs after the will was executed, and yes, insurance policies do pay off after suicide. My wife handled the trust until the youngest, his son turned twenty two. So for approximately twelves years everyday I had to deal with this in one form or another. My wife had to buy cars for the kids. Pay for semesters in college that emotionally we new they would never make it through the first semester and didn't. We had to deal with the minor car crashes, the drug abuse by two of them. Normal passings go away, but suicides never do.

I found a body when I was a teenager fishing Jamaica Pond.
I was playing the "Wouldn't it be freaky if" game in my head when I saw what I "thought" could be a torso floating with legs dangling down, and when I got close enough for a positive identification (of what it was not WHO it was), I was sufficiently freaked out enough to probably break the row-boat speed record for the half mile.
I ended up LITERALLY rowing the boat up onto the dock, where I processed to let the authorities know what and where I saw it.

Apparently the older man (old for a teenager) had been mugged and dumped into the pond!

As for suicides, there are those that do so because they want to leave a lasting impression on the surviving family and friends (truly selfish). This is usually true for high ranking officials that don't want to spend the rest of their life behind bars and opt out instead.

Then there are those that are truly suffering and don't want to be a burden to their friends and family, and assume that their death will be seen as a selfless act. Even though their intent is to lessen the suffering of their survivors, it ends up doing just the opposite.

The best you can do is realize that not everyone can be saved or wants to be saved, and no matter what you try to do you can't change these facts. Also, remember that just listening to someone that is heading down that dark path can sometimes make them rethink where they are going and what they will be doing!

Hopefully you won't be carrying this memory around like a weight around you neck!