FRIENDSHIP AND DEATH
An Acquaintance Killed Himself the Other Day
I’m shocked and sad, but I’ll get over it
My sad saga started when I woke suddenly from a deep sleep as if someone was shaking me.
But no one was shaking me. I was alone.
You see, I am a widower; my bed is my own. My nights are dark and full of solitude and slumber.
If someone were shaking me awake, it would have been a grandkid whose family is staying with me or the puppy who enjoys licking my face when she wants to play, oblivious to the human need for peaceful sleep.
That night was a calm evening, with nothing but the rhythmic sound of the ceiling fan clicking, as it has for the past twenty years.
Something startled me awake, and I had no idea why. Although waking up early is nothing new, it is a habit I developed over the decades.
My sleeping habits have roots back to my days as a firefighter. When the alarms would go off in the early morning, I’d have to respond to a fire or an accident, disrupting a peaceful sleep. But it was a worthy cause, and I quickly learned how to go from deep sleep to operating on pure adrenaline effectively.
