CATAGORIES: REST IN PEACE — FloridaBill @ 8:26 am

Yesterday proved to be a very difficult day.

The day started off fairly normally, but when it was announced that we were having an all employee meeting in the large conference room, it could only mean that someone had left or been promoted. The Vice President started the meeting on a very somber tone saying that of all the things he has had to announce in his career, this was by far the hardest. I should also say that we had noticed that the local HR person was present in the room and that members of a certain team in the office were not.

He then stated that one of our co-workers had died Monday. His next words struck my heart very hard; it was suicide.

I was shocked. Did he just say that my friend Jeff had killed himself? The guy who I played golf with every week at least once a week during the season for the last ten years or so? The guy who worked out with me in the gym and I considered to be a very good friend, both inside the office and outside? The guy who seemed to live more and enjoy more and do more than just about anyone I have ever known? My friend who I somewhat lived vicariously through concerning his sporting exploits, his travels, his bachelorhood and his partying? That guy had killed himself? I still can’t fathom it.

Several people in the room were visibly shaken and brought to tears. How the VP went on without breaking-up was beyond me (after all he was pretty close to Jeff too), but he had learned of the facts the night before and had shared them once already with the team that was missing from the conference room. He had been prepped on what to say and how to say it by the HR person. He said all of the right things in this situation: don’t blame yourself; express how you feel; know that you are not alone; give yourself time to heal; always reach out for help if you need it; you don’t have to answer questions about this; help is available to you; let us (management) tell our customers and business associates, but understand this is out there and people will be curious, etc…

Unfortunately for me, this is not the first time I have been near suicide in my life. I lost a cousin, Gary; a High School friend named Jim; a next door neighbor (whose name I can’t recall) and a former boss named Marguerite. I didn’t even know that Marguerite had taken her own life until years after the fact. One of the issues with having known someone who has taken their own life is the fact that you never get answers to the questions that you have. The biggest one being: why?

Why would a guy who had beaten Lymphoma (non-Hodgkin’s type; when I first met Jeff eleven years ago, he was just finishing up chemo and radiation treatments), who was extremely athletic, who had plans to travel to Europe this Spring, who enjoyed hunting and fishing and any sort of outdoor sport (especially golf), who was fun to be around and loved to laugh and have a good time, who had just met a new woman, why would this guy choose to end his life and why now?

Folks have asked: Did he leave a note? I don’t know. Was he depressed? Not that I ever noticed. Was there something we could have done? I don’t think so. I also don’t think we will ever be able to get our arms around this intellectually. In addition to the normal stages of grief one experiences upon the death of a friend or family member, with suicide you get some extra stuff, like anger and confusion and a big empty place that never gets filled with answers.

Many of the facts are still emerging (and likely will for some time), but we do know that he called in the office and submitted his resignation via voice mail earlier in the day. We know that he called and left a message about three weeks ago on his assistant’s voice mail at 3:00 am saying that he would be taking the next two weeks off and they were not to contact him since he wouldn’t have his cell phone on where he would be. He was supposed to be back in the office a week ago, but just didn’t’ show up. Several people had reached out to him during that last week, but he didn’t return any calls. Monday, he called and left a message for the VP saying that he had some issues to take care of and he wouldn’t be coming back in to work. He took his own life not long after that.

I miss him like crazy already. Fucktard. Rest in Peace Jeff.