Please Roll Back The Clock

This is a post about sad things including suicide and choices to be made

I’ve known a few people whose children died, or whose sibling died while they were still very young. My own family has too many such stories from my generation and the ones before me, one time is too many, and I’ve grieved for more than two with my friends.

Those stories have always made me want to scream to the gods, begging them to…

Stop the show, roll back the clock!!

Because, so often, it has seemed as though if only we could only have those last ten seconds back,

that instant before she fell in the pool, or he fell in the lake, or they were swept away by the ocean,

if we could only have been there to notice that moment when something started to go terribly wrong…

then we could go back in time, and save that baby,

We could save our sister or our brother, our cousin or our friend, and it would be all right.

It will never be all right again because we can’t turn that clock back.

I’ve known many more people who’ve died at an age that made it seem, “before their time.”

Maybe in their 20’s or 40’s, but even in their 60’s seems just too young.

We may get angry…

We may ask the spirit of our parents or mentors: why did you leave? How could you be gone? Why did you smoke? Or drink? Or do that thing, The one that made you leave too soon…

But we know in our hearts, that there is no rolling back the clock by an instant. We’ve known this, and known life, way too long. We can’t start the movie over and even if we could, we would have to go back, too far back in time to change the outcome, to bring back the life that was lost, long before the time of death.

Suicide has knocked on my door more than once. I’ve been close to more than one person who died at their own hands. I’ve wondered, as did we all who knew them, what if I could have said something different, done something else? But I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn back the time for them either.

There’s no way to stop an untimely death, to stop a suicide before it happens.

You can’t roll back the clock.

You also can’t edit what you said. You can’t unsay it.

What you can do, is treat people who are still alive in ways that show you love them.

Please think about the possible impact of your words, whether with your family, friends or strangers online. I’ve been close to suicide in my life and the kindness of people around me made the world of difference.

You can’t roll back the clock, but you can look at it and see when it’s time to be kind.

In no way is this piece of writing intended to say we can stop someone from committing suicide. It is meant to point out that it is possible to push someone closer by being unkind, and if you have said something cruel to a person who subsequently harms themselves, you can never, ever, take it back.

This post is an entreaty to choose kindness.