Tree Shades of Blue

The pounding on my door accompanied by loud babbling woke me up from a fitful sleep. My vociferous late night visitor turned out to be my next door neighbor. He told me he needed to use my phone. The reason being I thought he said was that his roommate, M, had hurt herself. I asked him if she was depressed. My question was due in large part to a conversation I'd had earlier that evening with a suicidal loved one who, when not out and out trying to kill herself, had a propensity for wounding herself with knives. He looked at me queerly and dialed nine one one. It was then when the operator came on the line that I heard him correctly: My roommate he said has hung herself.

He had not checked to see if she was alive. The sight of her hanging limp in his kitchen had triggered him to turn around and bolt. We hurried back to his apartment. As soon as we stepped through his back door I saw her. She had an electrical cord noose around her neck and was slightly up on her toes with her back against the kitchen door. Her tongue was sticking out. I opened the door and she slumped to the floor.

She was cool to the touch. I loosened the cord from around her neck and did what I'd seen on oh so many television shows. I tilted her head back, pinched her nose closed, placed my lips to her mouth and blew into her what I hoped was the breath of life. When the air escaped from her it did so with a low volume "Ahhhhh." I thought I'd saved her. But my exaltation was quick lived for she did not otherwise stir. I breathed into her a second time and once more the air left her with a disconcerting "Ahhhh." I blew several more deep breaths into her. Each one escaped her with its life like sound. Then, again with my television viewed expertise, I switched off from breathing into her to press down on her chest rhythmically, one hand atop the other. After several moments of pumping away I placed my thumb to her forearm. There was no pulse. I returned to giving her breath. But I knew it was in vain. She was dead and beyond human intervention. When the paramedics arrived they labored intensely for a quarter of an hour before placing her in an ambulance that sped off with its sirens blaring, a false urgency for a mission without hope.

Back in my bed I thought about the two times I'd interacted with M. Once we'd talked light heartedly for several minutes about my playful and friendly cat, Skinny. On the other occasion she'd invited me cheerfully to have a beer with her and the gathering of her friends. Both times she was fresh and vibrant. She was, as Richard Cory seemed, one beyond such despondent ends. What I wondered went through her mind just before tightening the noose around her neck.

In the minutes leading up to my second suicide attempt I was giddy with thoughts of my exit before me. For I was finally going to end the depression that had corroded everything with suffering. And in those last would be moments I reasoned in bleakness that I would destroy along with myself every creative endeavor I'd ever undertaken. Into the dumpster went my torn apart photos, drawings, journals, and manuscripts. I then doused it all with a gallon of insecticide. I wanted to leave nothing but a body behind. I went back to my bedroom, placed the plastic bag over my head, and stretched the packing tape around and around my throat. Then I laid down with a pillow beneath my head. I thought that I would go peacefully, slipping into death as if into sleep. But soon I was struggling for breath and awash with cold, panicked sweat. I held my arms tight to my side and strained for air. Unnerved and gasping I tore into the bag and faced the ugly and beautiful fact. I was alive and going to live.

With a fractured will I returned to my shrink with an urgent request to alter my meds. Over time, through trial and exploration, we found a combination and dosage that brought about for me a tenable self. Thus I was in the ensuing months resigned to living. Then my neighbor came pounding one night, a night it just so happened when I'd earlier spoken with someone precious to me who was in the dire straits of contemplating self destruction.

The following day I spoke once again with my loved one. The gloom of the day before had somewhat abated. After much cajoling she agreed to take the daunting step of seeking help. Before signing off with endearments we gave voice to just how close we both were to M and the precarious void. That night M and her family were in both of our prayers.