There is no easy way to broach this subject but broach it I must: in the past two weeks the West Shores has lost two young people to suicide. It is the third leading cause of death in the United States of people aged 15-24. While I have no first-hand knowledge of the facts surrounding the deaths, I do have peripheral knowledge of the pain families and friends of these two unrelated, under 25-year-olds, are experiencing. Gratefully, I am only observing from outside but still . . . unfathomable, that’s all.

In an age filled with the latest technology and reliable resources it seems almost equally unfathomable that these two youngsters did not find, perhaps could not bring themselves to find, relief from whatever oppressing thoughts occupied their hours. I once heard a noted behaviorist claim that kids these days don’t understand that dead is dead, that so many video games have characters to regain their lives with the flip of a “start over” switch, that realism is diminished. But, as we know, there is no start over switch, no where, so safe place, that allows disillusioned kids to try suicide out. There is only the permanence of out. We just can’t let that be anyone’s ultimate reality.

One more thing. There are days for all of us when the light at the end of the tunnel may turn out to be the on-coming train, when the rapier-like sharpness of someone’s tongue cuts our hearts to shreds, when even the busy chatter of the morning hummers isn’t enough to shake off that certain inalienable fog of self-doubt. I believe it was Ella Fitzgerald who said this, but whomever, please for all our sakes, if days seem glum take it to heart and remember, “Honey, God didn’t make no mistakes.” Peace.