Copyright © 2005 Ken Tangen.. All rights reserved
I stood on the deck of a Seattle ferry, considering suicide. It was not an idle thought, but a desperate attempt to find a release from my trouble. I watched the dark waters below and calmly pondered the alternatives. My heart felt as cold as the steel rail I tightly grasped. It was night, inside and out. I was confused and all alone.
We had left Seattle a few minutes earlier and were about halfway across Puget Sound. It was raining lightly from heavy clouds that almost touched the water. The city’s lights flickered across the black waves, and I was lost in thought.
It would be so easy to end it all. So easy to slip unnoticed over the rail. They would all think that it was an accident. A slippery deck, a loss of balance. I wouldn’t even have to jump. Just let myself fall that direction. It would be easy. No one would know. Becky wouldn’t be burdened by me any more. She was still young and could remarry. Besides, she’d be better off; she’d get the insurance money; she’d be better off.
I would get freedom. I wouldn’t have to face those questions again. I’d escape the prying looks and condescending tones of friends, relatives and strangers. Relatives were the worst. Friends could be avoided and strangers ignored but I couldn’t get away from the relatives. Family gatherings, like the one to which I was headed, made it impossible for me to escape. I was stuck, and there was little I could do to defend myself.
No one understood. They didn’t realize that it wasn’t my fault. They blamed me for my trouble, when it was God’s fault. He had made me blind; He had made me an albino. It was God who had given my brother Down’s Syndrome, and had caused my father’s death.
Yet even if they had believed that, it wouldn’t have mattered. They weren’t saying anything I hadn’t already told myself. I blamed myself for it all. Life was out of control and I was at fault. Not for anything in particular; I was to blame for everything.
I felt very alone. It was as if everything was tumbling and there was no one there to protect me. I was in trouble; my thinking was fouled up. I had lost my emotional resiliency and mental bounce. I had allowed the circumstances to rob me of my unalienable right to be happy.
I was not directionless; I had a goal I was trying to reach. I believed in my goal, was not afraid to work, and was determined to be a success. But there I stood at the rail thinking of throwing it all away.
I wonder now how I could have been so stupid....
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