it's not the easy way out

Three days ago a woman requested a key from a real-estate agency to examine and consider a vacant office space on the 14th floor of a downtown building. The night before last the same woman cooked her boyfriend his favorite meal. She invited his brother to have dinner with them and made sure everything, from the wine to the shrimp dish, was absolutely perfect. She said goodbye to her guests at the door and retreated to the privacy of her final hours. By the morning she had laid out her precious belongings on her bed with specific instructions for their disposal. By mid morning she had jumped out of the window of the vacant office on the 14th floor, leaving instructions that the key be returned to the realtor.

I sat on a windowsill once. I didn’t jump because the suffering I would cause to people I loved would be so much greater than any suffering I could be experiencing. The balance of pain in the equation simply didn’t work for me. So, to jump, a person has to believe that those she leaves behind are better off without her. Even if she never asked, she has to be certain.

People do, in fact, get tired of living. Personally I don’t think anyone should die before they have gotten tired of living. But that entails a state of hopelessness and disinterest in anything that may happen tomorrow. There is no TV show you want to watch, there is no seasonal food you want to eat, there is no place you want to visit, or revisit, there is nothing broken that you’ve been meaning to fix, there is no project, no book, no movie, no play, no birthday party, no skinny jeans to get into, no restaurant you want to try, no wine you want to open, there is nothing you want tomorrow, nothing at all. So, to jump, a person has to believe that the world of tomorrow holds nothing of interest, and what’s worse, the world of yesterday holds nothing worth remembering.

I read somewhere that people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge said they had changed their minds half way down. Their reasons for jumping seemed less significant in the void. You can’t take it back, there is no rewind, no pause button, there is no arguing with the void. So a person has to believe that her resolve is steadfast and right, right beyond a shadow of a doubt, immovable and unchangeable.

I half understand these reasons, except for the resolve required, I have never experienced such absolute, unwavering resolve. Once you step off the ledge time must stand still, fourteen floors and an eternity to consider the quality of your resolve and the quality of your existence. I hope her resolve remained steadfast to the very end, and that she found the peace she concealed so well she lacked. But most of all I admire her brave foolhardiness in choosing the quality and the exact duration of her life.