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At the end of my sophomore year of college, one of my hometown friends committed suicide. It had been many years since the two of us had been close, but he was part of my girl/guy group from about junior high until 11th grade. I'm pretty sure we stopped being friends when I got my eyebrow pierced and he and his friends disapproved. Strange. Yes. Both that I got my eyebrow pierced and that people stopped being friends with me because of it. It was kind of a big deal at the time.

He and those friends started getting into drugs soon thereafter and that officially ended whatever remnants of friendship that remained between us. I went to his funeral, though... at the end of my sophomore year of college. Because I grew up in a really small town, and even though it had been a while since we had been close, we HAD been close. To say it was sad is a bit of an understatement. What I remember most about that funeral was looking at his family - specifically his brother. My friend was the oldest of four. He had two brothers and a baby sister. I just couldn't stop staring at the next oldest brother. He looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders, but he was standing so straight and tall.. so grown up. so ready and willing to take on all of the responsibility that had just been dumped on him. My heart went out to him.

His mom spoke at the funeral and explained that he had just gotten so deep into drugs that he didn't see a way out. He felt hopeless. He shot himself with his father's shotgun.

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When I was teaching, the year that I had an 8th grade class of 20 boys, 2 of them approached me at separate times during the year and told me that they were seriously contemplating suicide. I was so sad to know that these young teens felt so much pain that they would consider such a thing. They both ended up going to professional counseling and I am in touch with them to this day and am pleased that in all appearances, they seem to be happy, well-adjusted high school sophomores.

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One Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's family, my brother-in-law who is a law enforcement officer for the national parks system, turned to me and began telling me how one of his friends had confided his feelings of hopelessness and despair to him. My brother-in-law had given him some kind words of advice and hadn't thought about it again. The next time he saw his friend, he was pulling his dead body out of his truck.

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Just recently, the son of my mother-in-law's best friend committed suicide.

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This week, one of my facebook friends started posting some strange status updates. The first one that caught my eye stated something along the lines of: "It's hard to have hope when you lose everything you care about in the span of a week"

Then: "I give up"

and yesterday: "Goodbye"

It was the goodbye that really bugged me. How cryptic and strange after such strong assertions of sadness and loss of hope.

He is one of those facebook friends that you have but don't really know too well. Again, he was a good friend of mine during the junior high/early high school years. I don't have his phone number. I'm not in touch with any of his friends. So I sent him a private facebook message saying that his statuses were making me nervous and asking if everything was OK.

A few hours went by and he did not respond.
I grew increasingly anxious about this.
Mike came home early that day - strangely - and I told him about it. He said, "Well, doesn't your mom know his mom?" (this question is based on the notion that my mom knows everyone in the small town where I grew up). Yes, my mom does in fact know his mom. He urged me to call my mom. I wasn't sure - I certainly didn't want to overreact if it was nothing.

Then I thought about all of the examples I presented to you above...
I certainly didn't want to underreact either.

I called my mom. She called her friend who is really the one who is good friends with his mom. Her friend called his mom and said, "Maybe you should check on him?"

An hour or so later he finally wrote back. "I'm ok. Thank u"

I don't know what was going on with him that day. I have no idea if I overreacted. All I know is that I reacted, and that according to his assertion, he is ok. That's good enough for me.