Lighthouse by Dr. Juan Harrison

Flying back from military officer training in Indiana I met my sister at the Tyler airport to find my mother had attempted to take her life.  Emergency personnel resuscitated her and she never attempted it again.  The last child leaving home was almost more than she could bear.

Today we’re constantly bombarded in our news with word of growing numbers of people, rich and poor, successful and not so much, college athletes and high schooler, all choosing to end it all.  My heart breaks for the families and friends left to feel the guilt and pick up the pieces.

Lovers of life, like most of us, ask why.  We wish we had two or three lifetimes to love on our grandkids and maybe live a whole new life of adventure that we couldn’t squeeze into this too short one.  Such a waste, such a waste.  Be they 6 months old or 16 years old, so much potential lost forever.

Every being entering this world has the capacity to help contribute to improving the quality of life on earth.  When they leave this world too soon you hear the swoosh of a vacuum being created by their sudden vacancy.  Be they 6 or 60, they’re irreplaceable.  Their unique talents and gifts are gone.  We all lose.

Society is in danger of becoming so jaded, so accustomed to the daily report of people choosing to leave this earth before their time that we almost accept it as a product of our crazy frenetic pace of life.

There is no magic pill for a society that has witnessed its disintegration of the family and all other elements of stability in our daily lives.  There is no one size fits all.  Each person choosing to take their life has reached a point of hopelessness.  They literally see no way out.  Often they’ve reached a stage of depression as my mom did where they are almost helpless to make rational decisions.

There’s a world of folks out there left behind.  They may feel unnecessary guilt or constantly find themselves second guessing woulda, shoulda.  The common factor in all this is hopelessness.  Anything we can do to help give a person a sense of purpose, a reason to live in the face of almost overwhelming odds, then we must do it.  We must do everything in our power to live a life of positivity based on a faith foundation.  We must have something to hang onto when the storms of life appear so that others can see that you can make it through the darkness.  We can make a difference.  First, we have to shore up our own foundation of faith and hope.  Then we can be the kind of lighthouse to help shine a light of hope to sinking ships.

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