When the trains pass through our town day or night, the engineer sounds the whistle. When I was new to town, I noticed it a lot. But quickly it became a homey, familiar sound--barely discernible, not because it isn't loud but because it's regular and expected. Under normal circumstances, people here would probably only notice the train if it didn't come through--like we sensed the deafening silence of the skies after 9/11.
But things are not normal right now in our little town. One of our beautiful young people, for reasons known only to himself, employed the train that he must have heard passing through town his entire life as a tool to take his own life. Instead of taking minor comfort in its predictability, its familiarity, he envisioned it as a source of ultimate relief to some inner pain he was not able to manage and did not know enough to share.
What happened? Did he pass out? Would he have changed his mind at the last minute if he had been able to hear the insistent, nearly hysterical blare of the train's horns on that freezing cold night? Questions abound. Theories are postulated. An investigation will commence. Perhaps some answers will present themselves in time. Maybe the devastated family and friends will take some solace in those answers. Time will tell.
In the meantime, for many of us, caught up in that train whistle that used to just mark the passing of time is the desperation of an engineer feverishly trying to save a life that cruel circumstances have thrown in his path, the devastation of a family embarking on a journey of incredible pain, the helplessness of a town left only to ask why and the cries of a young boy who was lost in the night.
4 comments:
Wow, first I have to say that the writer of this is really good and sould write novels.....sad and tragic as the story is on the surface, it doesn't allow me to know though how this person was feeling inside or what was wrong...was he unstable to satrt with? ill? I personally belive that if someone wants to take their own life under certain circumstances they should be allowed to although there are cleaner, quicker, less painful ways to do it....maybe the train had a special meaning...who knows??...what is important is that this helpless soul is in a better place and some comfort should be taken in this, he has taken his comfort in a big way and is no longer helpless or sad.
I think young people today are under so much pressure and are uncertain about so many things. How sad that he felt this was the only way to deal with whatever was causing him grief. I'm so sorry for his family and for the engineer who was driving that train.
Each one of us, as parents, needs to talk to their child about suicide, and convey to them that it is not an answer. They must know that anything that they experience, at these tender ages, can be resolved in another way. The wrath that is caused by this act is enormous resonates to everyone. It is easy to say he is in a better place, but I do not feel that we should be telling our kids that. They should know that they were born for a reason and this is where the better place is!
God bless his family and the train conductor.
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