I Knew He Was Going to Kill Himself

TW: Suicide

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I see him sometimes in a passing car, or in the parking lot at Food Lion. An overweight middle-aged white man, wearing that blue shirt he always favored — and then I realize, it couldn’t be him. He’s dead.

I didn’t know him very well, or very long, but I could tell he was a good person. He always had a smile and never a rude word for us working at the diner. He lent me a CD one time, and I invited him to lunch. He wouldn’t let me pay.

I could see the signs. It is hard to define them in a brief essay, the way he was looking for someone to care, the desperation that he tried to keep to himself but that somehow bled through. That sort of desperation that makes a lot of people avoid you, not really knowing why they do.

I recognized it. I’ve been there.

I tried to show him that I cared. I made sure he had my number, I invited him out again. I remember the day my co-worker told me no one had heard from him since last week and the image of him hanging from the rafters of his garage or his basement, all alone, sprang into my mind. I couldn’t shake it until he came back in the store.

I wanted him to know that he didn’t have to be alone. That is the worst part of being in that state of mind, feeling that you are all alone and there is nobody who really…