Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Life is Hard. Don't Do It!

My wife comments on the recent suicide of a well-known megachurch pastor and long-term results:
Let me explain. My family is a testimony to the long-term effects of suicide. My grandmother shot herself in front of my grandfather after he accused her of having an affair. That was in 1941. My mother was just 12 years old. She walked in after it occurred and so did her younger sister.
Strike one.

My grandfather, who was an eminent cardiologist, ended up losing his license to practice medicine due to his increasing use of alcohol. He married a nurse to care for his children. My mother hated her and wished her dead. When this woman died of ovarian cancer, my mother never forgave herself. My grandfather died of cirrhosis of the liver when I was three, again devastating my mom.

Strike two.
My mother's alcoholism destroyed her marriage of 23 years. My dad divorced her when I was 16. By the time she died in 1984, the frontal lobe of her brain was merely interstitial fluid. Her alcoholism had destroyed her brain. I cared for her in the last year of her life, watching her became an infant.

Strike three.
Her sister also drank herself to death, leaving two daughters behind. Her older brother shot and killed himself as an adult, leaving three daughters behind.

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