Dustin

I walk past this parking garage two times every week. And every time I do, I think about Dustin.

A few years ago Dustin left his job for a lunch break, camera in hand. He said he was going to get some pictures of Brown Park. When he got to the park, he went to the top of the parking garage, climbed on top of the wall, and jumped off.

He left a wife and a child behind.

I didn't know Dustin well. He was the manager at the place where my then girlfriend worked, so I exchanged pleasantries with him on occasion. After the girlfriend and I broke up, I ran into him at a different worksite and he pretended that he was chewing something and couldn't speak. He held up his finger and nodded his head and chewed furiously...and it was clear that there was nothing in his mouth. But he didn't know what to say, and he didn't want to be rude, so he pretended to chew.

I also remember that my then girlfriend had hung up a picture of a youthful version of me in her work cubby in the back, and that Dustin had noticed it and commented on what a pretty girl that was. I had long hair and very sharp cheekbones when I was young.

I have to admit that I liked being thought of as a pretty girl.

I understand wanting to kill yourself. I doubt that a day has gone by for me in the past 50 years (give or take) when I haven't thought about killing myself. I wouldn't do it, but the thought still crawls up my spine. Because there are times...lots of them...when this world just sucks. When people are cruel for absolutely no discernible reason...even when not to be cruel would be the easier path. When things go wrong over and over again. Yes, I understand wanting to kill yourself quite well.

But my God...Dustin couldn't have been older than his early 40s. And he had a wife who loved him and a young child. 

I didn't know him very well, but I think of him often. When I pass that parking garage. When I think about killing myself. When I think about my children. When I think about the cruelties of this fucking bitch of a world.

And at night when I say my prayers...which I do indeed do, and on my knees like a child, too...I remember the people I've known who have died...my mother and father, my sister, my grandfather (step), my aunt, my grandmother, my former father-in-law and his two sisters, my former mother-in-law and her father, my friends, my teacher (and favorite priest), the nun who started St. Mary's Center, three of my students...and Dustin. It's a simple prayer, just a recitation of their names and then "may their memories be a blessing to all who loved them, to all who knew them." 

I couldn't tell you why, but this has become an important thing to me.