Member-only story
We’re stronger than we imagined.
And we’re not as broken as we thought.
Picture an 11 year-old boy somewhere in Syria, walking over rubble and ruins that yesterday were his home and neighborhood. Everyone he knows is dead or missing. In the rubble under his feet may lie the bodies of one or more family members. He runs into his uncle Farid. He’s alive! They’re too numb and too shocked to celebrate, and their joy is quickly punctured by the reality that most of their people are probably dead. The man and the boy are not likely suicide candidates. They will keep going.
Zoom over to somewhere in West Virginia. A 50-something man sits on his porch in the early afternoon. It’s pleasantly warm for this time of year as the sun hits his face and shoulders, it feels nice. He thinks about his kids and how much he loves them. About his brother and two sisters. What a hard life they’ve all had. Yet how sturdy they are, how they dust off and get up to do it again every day. He’s not sure why. He hasn’t worked in four years and his back pain has caused him to develop an opioid addiction. He walks to his truck and drives a few miles to a quiet spot — one he has driven to many times. This time though, he’s left a note on his pillow at home. He pulls a Beretta 92X from his coat pocket, unclicks the safety and without hesitation, holds it to his temple and pulls the trigger.
