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Edited on Thu Dec-03-09 11:21 AM by shadowknows69
“What makes a man can also be what breaks a man.”
-Anonymous
Up until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving of 2009 I had a friend named Jack. Jack is not his real name, but it will suffice to protect his identity out of respect for family and friends who may by happenstance see this essay. It is a shame, if necessary, to do this; he deserves to have his story told with his own name. He was a good man who simply found he couldn’t face another day faced with the poker hand that fate threw his way.
I grew up with Jack in the same home town as far back as kindergarten if memory serves. We were a small village, one of many scattered about the metro area and everyone went to the same school or church together at one point or another.
Jack was in the Cub Scout troop that my mother ran and like many friends of mine around town my mother became more than just Shadow’s mom, but a surrogate parent to them as well. Jack wasn’t exactly in my main circle of buddies; three other “Musketeers” that will also remain anonymous, but he was a home town kid and in our day at least that made you a friend by default.
Not that there wasn’t scads of things to like about Jack, and we did stay pretty tight all through school. That’s what makes this tragedy so much harder to take. People’s lives after school invariably drift away from some of the people they grew up with, even if they still live in the same town. New circles of friends are formed, usually from jobs, marriages and kids in school and our paths diverged in this way.
Jack was someone that never forgot that “spirit of the hood” and whenever you’d see him he would make you feel like not a day passed since graduation and we did see each other and shared a drink, smoke or laugh many a time. I’m proud to say he also attended my wedding. I never got the chance to attend either of his.
To my eternal shame the last time I saw Jack alive was in November of 2007 when I rode with him to our twenty year high school reunion. As usual we shared many memories of our days in chorus and theater together, old girlfriends or crushes we had in common, and all the wonderful reminiscing that goes on.
Jack had an incredible singing voice and nailed the lead in the school play every time. I was usually relegated to the chorus or a “character actor” part, but there was never any snobbery, and to those of you who think all us chorus and band people were dweebs then clearly you’ve never been to a high school musical cast party.
He continued his music after school singing with a number of local groups; barbershop quartet, choral groups and he sure loved the ragtime. At my wedding Jack had already split with his first wife if memory serves and I seem to remember a diatribe about never doing it again. He was the proud daddy though, his first daughter being very young at the time and he talked about nearly nothing else. I begged him to stay in touch as I have every time I’ve seen him over the years, but I could have just as easily called him and Jack wouldn’t be capable of refusing an old buddy some time if I’d asked. I’ll carry a significant amount of guilt for that for some while I suspect. Could I have stopped the inevitable sad ending to this story? It’s an answer I’ll never know and never stop asking myself.
We fell out of close touch again, but still meeting randomly over the years. He actually saw my wife more in recent years as a company he worked for sold product to a grocery store she worked for. She made the reunion connection for me as he asked her if I was going and wanted a ride, because he didn’t really drink anymore and knew I probably would.
In the “lost” years since my wedding Jack got married again and had two more beautiful children and was secure in his job. Still doing music, he was an avid outdoorsman and hunter and gave his oldest a love of fishing she retains to this day. Again at the reunion quick with the pictures, that massive smile lighting up the entire room as it always did and his wit still razor sharp.
Jack had attained the American dream and no one deserved it more or worked harder for it. He always worked, always provided, always loved his children and his wives, and despite having a horrible childhood that my mother probably knows more about through his confessions to her, he even reconciled with his father, apparently. His mother passed a couple years ago. I don’t know if he ever made his peace with her or if she even earned it. I was lucky to have a lot of friends like Jack as a kid and the reason I had so many is because my mom is who troubled kids would run to when their home wasn’t treating them well. My mother was a teacher to most of my friends later in school as well and there are very few that don’t refer to her directly as “mom”. My heart broke when I saw her come out of Jack’s calling hours weeping. Sadly she was one of very few of his teachers that showed up.
It was the Friday after Thanksgiving that I found out. Coincidently another friend of ours from the home town was visiting that night when my wife called from work and asked if I’d looked at the local news pages because they were posting an obituary for someone with my friend’s name and the same age. To look up Jack’s real name in a phone book you’d find probably hundreds of listings and even dozens around here. It’s that common, so we didn’t even really know if it was our friend at first. I called mom to see if she could find anything out from local neighbors. There was no mention of anything but calling hours in the initial obit and no mention of survivors.
After about an hour my wife called back after consulting with our considerable grapevine network and got confirmation that it was my friend and it appeared he had taken his own life. The lack of information in the obit suggested this, but I was praying it was some accident we had missed seeing the story on or anything less inconceivable than this happy man succumbing to something I have successfully fought every day for twenty odd years.
Information filtered in the next few days that Jack had recently lost his job, divorced and apparently lost custody of at least two of his kids. We also found out about a week and a half before he had an accident with his truck, which could have been a first attempt or just another shit sandwich that may have contributed to breaking him. Not knowing more details about how and when all this misery started happening to my friend is what hurts the most.
So the day before Thanksgiving, possibly his first one without his family together, I don’t know, Jack drove out to his favorite hunting spot and shot himself to death with his own gun.
I have lived with depression for much of my life and maybe Jack did too, but like another friend of mine who took his own life over fifteen years ago I don’t think you would ever see it. The mask was too well fixed. He was literally one of those people you could never conceive getting to that low of a point.
I have a theory now that those of us who know we are depressed are actually in less danger of killing ourselves because we know we’re on that ledge every day. Our guns are always cocked and pointed at ourselves. We know how close we are and maybe it’s easier to step back from the abyss when you’re always looking into it.
But take away a man’s (or woman’s) things that define them, when the world generally has been fairly fair to them for much of their life and dump it on them all at once and sometimes the camel’s back just breaks.
Jack had to work hard as Hell to attain what he did in his life. He was born with amazing talent and he had many skills to offer prospective employers and plenty of charm, intelligence and love to offer an intimate partner. He also had it hard at home and rose above amazing adversity to make it though high school, not the least of which was a major spine surgery in his junior year. Mostly though, Jack was just friendliness personified, someone who could make you laugh. Someone who would, if asked, probably do anything for you, whether he knew you or not.
The world is a much darker place without my friend Jack in it. He played by the rules, worked hard and was rewarded with unemployment, tried to love a second time and was rewarded with divorce, tried to love his children and saw them taken from him and simply must have seen the possibility of getting back to where “society” expects him to be just too long of a trip to take again.
I’m actually feeling a strange survivor’s guilt about it all. It’s supposed to be people like me who kill themselves not Jack. My label in our country is: “Mentally ill, not able to work, a burden on society.” Jack’s was “Normal, incredibly talented singer/musician; hard working, loving husband, father and good friend.” It make no sense to me how I’ve been strong enough to fight this demon called depression so long and see a stronger friend be taken by it so quickly.
I can’t pretend I really know the reason Jack pulled the trigger that fateful day, but I can’t help think that the United States of Expectations made him feel he just didn’t have a place in it anymore. I love you my old friend. Good journey and may your spirit find peace.
-S
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