In the wake of a wake

Suicide kills more than one person. There is more than one victim. There are no known statistics for gang members who commit suicide. But often when a person feels there is no way out that pain is too great he decides to end the pain himself. It is not death that he / she seeks, it is release from pain. Gang leaders take more victims, gangs kill more kids but this way is an indirect way. Rival gangs don’t fire the bullets but they might as well have. Gang leaders don’t pull the triggers but they put the guns of pain in those kids’ hands.

And yes, if you are a gang leader, you are responsible. This blood in blood out crap is done to use fear to keep kids in. To make you money. To make weak men feel powerful. If what you have is so great to offer then why do you use fear to keep people in? Because you are too cowardly to be a real leader and give kids the freedom to choose. Yeah you are responsible. Their blood is on your hands and it will come back to you someday.

It isn’t just gang kids that kill themselves of course. Our kids are in pain. They are dying to live and living to die.

Foolish people say “it’s the cowardly way out.” Foolish people who have not experienced pain to that degree. Uneducated self proclaimed know-it-alls who think they have the answers to life and yet sit on their behinds doing nothing. Keep your “meaning of life” “knowledge” to yourself if you are not willing to be part of the solution.

What those who do take their own lives often do not understand is that they don’t just kill themselves, they take people with them. Even if they feel no one loves them, even if they are right about it, someone, somewhere looks up to them. If you kill yourself you don’t realize that somewhere some kid may be looking up to you as well. You will tell him by your actions that it is ok to do the same. If you won’t fight for yourself, fight for other innocents.

I struggle with depression daily. Some days it is all I can do to get up and breathe. But my kids depend on me. My kids at home and the kids I work with. Even when I do not feel like I am worth anything, they do. A long time ago, I almost did it. But if I had, I would never have known them. They have been worth all the pain. You don’t know what you may miss if you decide to end it. Pain ends. Death does not.

You don’t know what the flood of sorrow of death itself will bring to others. You don’t know what influence it will have on others. You don’t know what you will miss that will be worth holding on, if you die.

Though the pain may feel like it is drowning you. The wake of your wake will only take others down with you. Just hold on. Find someone to help you. Tell someone. Hold on. Because if you kill yourself you will create a storm that is beyond anyone’s control. Your pain will become someone else’s. Your flood will drown others.

There will be more than one victim in the wake of your wake.