Suicide isn't the only way out

This must be my very first complete article. I think I've been scribbling since I was in school, however, this one I wrote for my college magazine. I consider this my first article, that was written in full and got published somewhere. For a long time, when I had written many other articles, my friend still quoted this as my best one. 

It might not be the BEST for a lot of people, of course. None of my articles even fall close to Best, yet, it holds an important place for me as, again, it was the very first. :)

I have not made any changes, just copied it from my magazine (which also happened to be the first magazine of my college). Reading it incurred a lot of feelings, the cynical that I have become in these 10 years or so, I can add a lot to this small piece, this written account of  the mindset of a 15 year old. I will save all that for the comments section. :)

Here's the article:

It was a fine Monday morning of 2001. As it was our practice to sit together before the classes started and talk, so we were doing the same that day too. One of my friends told me that a boy of ninth class had killed himself, but I didn’t believe that, I thought she was joking as she had the habit of joking and I hated her for making such a joke. But my anger turned into deep sadness and shock when the news was confirmed as the vice Principal of our school made the announcement in the assembly that one boy of class IX got killed but she didn’t say that it was a suicide attempt. She for the sake of the small children, said that it was an accident. His class teacher was crying, his classmates for once were serious. I saw some of them with tears in their eyes. This all added to the tension.

This so-called accident was not an accident at all as a boy of age 13-14 is big enough to understand that gun is not a thing to play with. This was all well planned. He had been planning suicide for God knows how many days. A day before this incident, he went to his best friend’s place and said that he is sorry if he had ever done anything to hurt him. His friends, of course, thought all of this was a joke. Nothing in the whole world could have prepared him for what he was going to hear the next day.

Apparently, this boy had become very angry over something, and he took his father’s gun (who is a police officer) locked himself in his room, stood before the mirror, put the gun on his fore-head and pressed the trigger. What would have happened next, everyone can guess.

From there on I had started hating this word suicide. All the time I was hearing about this one question kept bugging me why would someone do such a thing? Taking someone else’s life is itself a huge sin but taking away your own life, depriving yourself from a beautiful gift, why? Nothing can be so bad as to make you ready for killing yourself. I can’t even begin to imagine what that boy must be going through, what went so bad to make him take such a big step?... but still.

Everyone goes through bad times. Everyone has ups and downs in their lives but this isn’t the way to cope with them.

Committing suicide doesn’t hurt you only, it affects others too. I didn’t know that boy and yet his death has affected me so much that every time I heard that someone killed himself, I spend one whole day in tension and in just thinking why? But honestly I never even came close to the answer. If this bothered me so much how would his parents must have thought? It is not easy to lose someone so close. They must be blaming themselves for this and what about all his other relatives? What about his best friend? He would still be telling himself that he could have stopped this from happening. Losing a friend is very harsh.

The only reason I narrated this story is to make people realize that suicide isn’t the only answer. May be that boy was going through a lot of hard times but this life is God’s greatest gift. It is just like a school. The different stages of life are the classes. The bad times are our examinations and the good times are our reward. To commit suicide is not a very brave thing to do. It’s a sin, which hurts not only you but your parents, your friends. So how come anything can be so bad for which you are ready to take your own life. If you get bad times it means good times will follow soon.

No matter how hard life sometimes seems, continue hoping for a brighter day. As a new day brings new hopes.

If life gives you a lemon make a lemonade

And never ever think that you are unimportant. Everyone is sent with a mission in this world which only they can accomplish, who strive for it. 

As Jacob M. Brawde said in Brawde’s source book for speakers and writers:

Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. There is some one who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill.