"Then, on the 10th anniversary of his death, my mother sat us down and explained the concept of suicide."

I tend to avoid glib assertions when it comes to being in touch with my emotions. Males tend to be handicapped in this fashion, and as an only child who spent much time alone reading, I've been inclined toward melancholy reveries and elegiac reflections as opposed to interaction.

Exacting details aren't necessary for me to say that during the past few months, the suicide of a friend has caused me to re-examine my point of view about taking one's own life, especially as it pertains to the subsequent pain of family members.

It's an examination in progress, and I've nothing transformational to divulge just yet. But while an essay like the one linked here probably would have escaped my attention six months ago, at this precise moment I'm deeply affected, particularly since it is the point of view of a woman who lost her father to suicide early in her life, as a young child.

Aisling Bea: ‘My father’s death has given me a love of men, of their vulnerability and tenderness’, by Aisling Bea (The Guardian)

The comedian’s father killed himself when she was three. She was plagued by the fact he made no mention of her or her sister in the letter he left. Then, 30 years after his death, a box arrived

My father died when I was three years old and my sister was three months. For years, we thought he had died of some sort of back injury – a story that we had never really investigated because we were just too busy with the Spice Girls and which one we were (I was a Geri/Mel B mix FYI). Then, on the 10th anniversary of his death, my mother sat us down and explained the concept of suicide. Sure, we knew about suicide. At 13, I had already known of too many young men from our town who had taken their own lives. Spoken about as inexplicable sadnesses for the families, spoken about but never really talked about … “terrible tragedy … nobody knows why he did it”. What we had not known until that day, was that our father had, 10 years beforehand, also taken his own life.