He was awkward and shy, he was a bit overweight and not what one would call the best looking guy... he was a middle child and the universe it seemed helped to never let him forget it, the forgotten kids who grow up not being the oldest and not being the baby... he was quiet and well aware of his weight and so he wouldn't eat in front of people because it made him self conscious... both his parents worked at the restaurant he would start working in as a high school kid, first as a line cook and eventually working his way up to being the manager at what was considered the flagship location of the local place where he was employed... he made good money, excellent money for a single guy, he owned a house and a car and was one of the loneliest people one ever saw...
He wasn't social but he had a few friends but in all the years he worked no one ever knew him to have a girlfriend, not in high school or after... he was one of those people who go to work and do their job and then go home, it's as if no one had ever taught him how to live or how to enjoy something, anything really, they are forgotten it seems by everyone around them except when they were working or helping out someone in their family... and it appears no one seems to really notice how much pain they are in, how lonely they really are... how day after day, year after year, they get up and go to work and come home to an empty house or apartment, to watch television and make dinner alone, to sit in a room with no conversation or human interaction only to trudge off to bed in order to get up and do it again... and for what? and therein lies the burning question, for what? why do any of us do this shit? i guess we could say to survive, to take care of the people or animals we love, to have some semblance of a family, to not be alone... but what happens when none of that works out? what happens to those of us, in a society that bleats about being more connected than ever, have no one? or at least believe and feel as if they have no one and ultimately that is all that matters, that they believe and feel they have no one...
And so it was that one non-descript Monday that Jim went to work... there had been signs he had been struggling, signs that he needed help and though his co-workers and friends asked him if he was okay he said yes, he was fine... the saddest thing is his family actually asked his boss about him, was he okay? he seemed to be in a dark place but those around him at work, those that were his friends had talked to him and though he seemed down they believed he'd be alright... and so the Monday workday came and went... when the place closed he sat in the back staring off into space, lost in thought... one of the waitresses asked him if he was okay and he said yes, he was tired, she smiled at him and told him he should go home and get some sleep and that she'd see him tomorrow... and then she left...
On his own to lock up he went into the office and wrote a letter, a letter to his boss, the woman he looked at as one of his best friends if not the best friend he'd ever had, they had worked together for over twenty years... he tucked the note into a folder and drove home... then he called another cook and told him how great a friend he was and that everything was going to be okay but that he wanted him to know... the other cook said of course it is and stated that he was a his boy, a great friend to him and that he'd see him tomorrow at work... Jim said it again, that he was a great friend and that everything was going to be alright and then hung up... he locked up the restaurant, walked to his car and drove home...
Once home he began to get things organized as if it was just another Monday, he laid out the information to various accounts and subscriptions on the kitchen table, he double checked to make sure it was all there and then he sat down and wrote his boss an email... it was sent shortly after 5pm, his boss didn't see it until a half an hour later and as she read it she felt a sense of unease come over her, was this a goodbye? it seemed off but it didn't outright say anything in the way of self harm but the tone had her worried, she called a couple people and it was decided to call in a mental health check... about 20 minutes after he sent the email he sent his younger brother a text... it stated he loved him and not to be mad... then he taped a note to his front door, walked back to his favorite chair, put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger...
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The note that the was taped to front door that the police found stated simply, Call 911 I'm already gone... in a way there was a symmetry to his life and his death, he felt unseen in his life and now wished not to be seen in death... really he was just looking out for his loved ones, didn't want them to see the aftermath of his decision... but what he never realized was that while doing this may have ended his pain that pain didn't disappear, it was just transferred to those who cared about him, those still here left to deal with the aftermath...
The human race is more connected than ever and yet lonelier than we've ever been... Jim may have been shocked at how many people actually did care but then again did they? we live in a society where we're so wrapped up in our own lives it seems difficult for many of us to step outside of ourselves and look at the people around us, to see if they really are doing alright and yes in the current shit show we all have to take care of our own mental health first before we can look after others but the fact is even when we do look after our own we tend not to look after others, the observations or concerns brushed aside or compartmentalized in phrases like, what can i do? it's not really my problem? hopefully the family looks after them... i've often paraphrased and stolen the line from Jean Genet that families are the cruelest of jokes, and often times they are, the unconditional love people expect or are taught to believe in never materializes... and what then? then it comes down to friends and as Jim wrote in his letter to his boss, one can't choose their family but they can choose their friends and that she chose him to be a friend which was the best thing that happened to him... beautiful and heartbreaking... and absolutely true...
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I've thought a lot about Jim, we were more acquaintances than friends but the BW was his boss so having heard about him so much over the years in a way i felt i knew him... we'd talk and hangout at certain functions but i didn't work with him day in and day out... but what i did know from everything i'd seen and heard is that he was incredibly lonely and incredibly unhappy... think about going home to and empty house or apartment every day, the only real social life you have is at work and even then you question if it's genuine or if it's the typical "work" friend, granted some of the people where he worked were his friends but when the darkness falls it does not lift lightly or easily, he never once spoke of harming himself and when asked directly he said he'd never do a thing like that... warning signs... the people who say they'd never do it tend to be the ones who do while those who constantly claim they're going to tend to be the ones who don't... that's not a critique or knock or whatever just what seems to be the case... for Jim it was day after day of the same thing, no one ever happy he walked in the door, no one to talk to, just another night in front of the television or online, another dinner eaten alone before trudging off to bed all in order to do it again, the days off while needed even more brutal, a day spent with no one, grocery shopping alone, running errands alone... and while some people (see me) may enjoy doing those things on their own we still need people, we still need human interaction and in a world with billions there are still far too many who have no one...
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In the last few years i've now known four people directly and one indirectly who have taken their own lives (four men in there 40s and 50s and one woman in her 40s)... yet we live in a place where mental healthcare, for all the ads and campaigns designed to help us recognize the signs in ourselves or others, is still hard to come by, both expensive and difficult to obtain in a system run by greed which buys and pays the legislators who understand that money deposited in their campaign coffers was an investment, an investment at keeping the status quo, vacuum up the money while doing as little as possible in returning the services which the system supposedly provides, it's a Ponzi scheme and one which the C-suite crowd and the shareholders want cemented into place... it ain't got fuck all to do with health, mental or otherwise... which means we have to look after each other, we need to pick up the phone, we need to take the time out of our lives to get a cup of coffee or a fucking omelet with people and listen, especially those that seem lonely, isolated, struggling, we need to find our humanity again in a culture that's increasingly predicated on me me me a culture that seems to revel in cruelty... one need to look at none other than certain elected officials, the entertainment industrial complex, the social media shit show that teaches kids that "likes" are the only thing that counts and that disparaging comments matter when in fact they mean fuck all... the ridiculous fact that our culture is all about documenting how fabulous our lives our when the truth is the best lives our lived out of the glare of the social media cesspool... social media is the culmination of what Warhol predicted decades ago... everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes... maybe less... but that's a whole different diatribe and all i'm trying to really say is can we at least try to look after each other? cuz we need to, it's called being human...
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