Close to home

I'd much prefer this were one of my usual sarcastic, snarky posts with a snappy end line. We'd all have a good laugh, then get on with our day.

Sadly, not this time out.

Last week, a school friend of my son's committed suicide. He was only four months older. They were in a rock band together for awhile.

This young man had been somewhat of an outsider. He wound up leaving my son's school and going to a performing arts school three and a half years ago for various reasons, one of which is he was an extremely talented musician. Everyone at school, his bandmates as well as several professional musicians respected and envied what he could do on the guitar. His guitar teacher called him the next Jimmi Page or Joe Satriani.

It was a road filled with promise and wide open to him.

When we got the call and told our kids, they were both understandably in shock, as were we. My son said it's the first person he's known who's ever killed himself. I hope he never knows any others. He asked me if I've ever known anyone who's taken their own life. I've known two - a creative director and an actress. But I only knew them in passing, and would never say I was close to them (which of course doesn't make it any less tragic).

My wife and son went to the funeral last week. And while this is the part where normally I'd crack wise about putting the fun back in funeral, there's nothing funny about it. According to my boy, it was extraordinarily sad. Both the funeral and the reception were uncomfortably silent. You couldn't mention what had happened, and you couldn't not, so no one said anything. It was a silence you could feel.

I can only imagine that in the aftermath his parents pain is more than anyone should have to bear. The details don't matter. What's important is a talented young man, who's life had barely gotten started, was in so much pain he thought taking his own life was the only way to make it stop.

I don't have any wisdom or insight here. All I have are the truisms we all recite by rote and take for granted, until something like this happens.

Pay attention. Watch for signs. Love and hug your kids. Let them know the lines of communication are open whenever they want to talk. Make sure they understand no subject is off the table.

And let them know as unfair as it is, they'll have to live with the fact that sometimes there's no answer for why.