My Niece Commits Suicide

My niece Shannon lies comatose in a hospital bed tonight.  Today is her birthday, the last one of her life.  Tomorrow they will cease life support and turn off the machines that keep her heart beating and her lungs respirating.  Less than a week ago she went into the garage of her home in Santa Clara, California, stepped up on a sofa there, wrapped a curtain drawstring around her neck and stepped off.

Minutes later, her husband Dan and eldest daughter found her hanging in the garage.  They quickly cut her down and applied CPR, as did the medical alert team that quickly arrived.  She was taken to the hospital where she was put on life support and tested for vital signs.  After two days the doctors could find no sign of brain activity; she was in a vegetative state.  

Shannon had been experiencing Covid 19 symptoms for several weeks, which started after she was vaccinated against the disease.  She was told by her employers at San Jose State that she could not resume her teaching position until she got the booster shot.  She got it and the symptoms worsened.  She was in constant pain and suffering from anxiety, but her doctors said she wasn’t dying and death was not expected.  

What drove her to commit such a terrible act?  Did the vaccine cause insanity?  I am no doctor and can only speculate.  She leaves behind a husband, a son and two daughters, the youngest of whom will graduate from high school on June 1.  

Shannon is 53 years old today, forever 53.

Update:  She passed away peacefully at 12:13 Pacific time today, Sunday, May 29, 2022.

La Vie En Bleue

“The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.”

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1789-1860 (perhaps the world’s most pessimistic philosopher)

Shopenhauer, a German philosopher, saw life as a painful experience with happiness in short supply.  He thought the best approach to it was not to seek happiness, but merely to limit the pain of life.  I think he had a point.  

There is a French song called “La Vie en Rose,” or life in the pink, seeing life through rose colored glasses.  Lately my life has been “La Vie en Bleue,” or life seen through a blue filter.  It no doubt seems worse than it is, being I am still grieving over the death of my dog.  I can do nothing except wait for my morbid mood to change, like the weather does periodically.   Meanwhile, I keep a nightly habit of writing in my blog, just before bed, in an attempt to dispell a few demons and find a bit of peace for my soul. 

A Good Definition of Grief

Grief is the Worst Psychic Pain of All. How Can We Endure It?

I still grieve for my dog, Bogie.  I hate grief, it is the worst psychic pain of all.  How can we deal with it?  I think it’s similar to the flu.  You just have to suffer through it while waiting for it to pass.  In my home I see Bogie everywhere, in the back yard, in the living room where he lay in front of my armchair where I watch TV, at the foot of my bed where he slept most every night of the last twelve years.  I am waiting for scar tissue to cover the gaping wound in my soul.

I know there are many people suffering even more terrible grief than I, like the families in Waukesha, Wisconsin who lost six family members who were run over by a car that plowed into the Christmas parade that they were part of.  I have a friend, a Lutheran pastor, whose 14 year old son committed suicide over some personal pain he was experiencing. He was a talented kid who was a lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, and his parents’ only child.  I can’t imagine how painful that must be to his parents.  Also, My best friend for sixty years lost his only son in a car crash in 2001.  My grief pales in comparison.

May God grant us all peace and release from such unbearable pain.

Rose Kennedy had this to say:  “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’  I do not agree.The wounds remain.  In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.  But it is never gone.”