Every time I drive beneath a certain overpass, my throat tightens. A cluster of silk flowers, now gray and mildewed after years of exposure to wind and rain, still springs from between the chain links of the guardrail. Every time I see them, I remember whom they honor, and I fight tears.
He was only a teenager, at an age when his worries should have been limited to basketball practice and the next algebra test. I met him in the emergency room, after he’d jumped off the overpass that now bears his flowers.
Much from that night still haunts me. I tense with remorse about my inability to save him. I shudder at the memory of his mother’s scream, and how she collapsed to the ground when we broke the news. Most of all, I grieve that he saw suicide as his only escape. I wonder about the suffering he shouldered, such that that the agony of continuing life overpowered the horror of ending it.
Having walked in a similar darkness myself, I wonder if anything could have been done to guide him back into the light. And I wonder how we, as disciples of Christ, can more intentionally come alongside others struggling to live for one more day. Read More
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