This morning I woke to the news that my Twitter pal Joe Bodolai had taken his own life in a hotel room in Los Angeles. He drank a lethal cocktail of Gatorade and anti-freeze.
Two months ago, my friend Richard Ludt jumped off the Fremont Bridge.
In 1993, my friend and former (sometimes but not always) platonic roommate, Paul Dickson, drove out to an abandoned rock quarry near Athens, Georgia, took the license plates off his car and buried them along with anything that would identify him, drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels, and jumped feet first into the quarry.
Three different men, three different kinds of relationships. One I never met at all. One filled my life with light and healing touch. One helped me grow up. I loved them all in different ways, but they each impacted me forever.
They’re gone. Their pain is over, along with with the torment that drove them to make their fatal, awful decisions. Suicide is the most selfish act a person can commit, transferring their ills to us to try to sort out. It’s incredibly unfair of them to do this to us, you know, but they’re too far gone to think about that. We’re left feeling overwhelming sadness combined with anger. And questions, we have tons of those. All of them begin with “Why”.
Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about this?
Why didn’t you ask me to help you?
Why didn’t you think about all the people you’re leaving behind who love you?
Why wouldn’t you try everything possible to stay and fight in this life?
Why why why why why WHY?
And no answer. And no answer. And no answer.
I’m mad at Joe, Richard, and Paul. I loved them, but I’m also furious as hell. They each made a fatal choice without consulting the people it would affect, and that is a lot of damn people. I ache for their losses while seething that they would do something so final, so cruel, so selfish. You never expect anyone to go to such extremes, but you really never expect it to be the people who seem the most full of life.
Their pain is over, while ours continues. There’s a gaping hole where my friends used to be. I’ll try to fill it, but tiny pieces of my heart will never fully recover.
Goodbye, Joe. 
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a story I can (unfortunately) relate to. After breaking up but still living under same roof as former (beloved) lover; I packed & moved my life across the country to Los Angeles. My nephew had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse; come live rent-free in LA, you can work & audition w/o huge hassle of paying exorbitant rent…I had just finished a 2 yr grad program at Cinn. Playhouse in The Park, my acting coach said; why aren’t you in New York, or La? You’re good. I was finally good at something…the relationship with Tony, not good. I adored him, & he me. He could not stop using cocaine. I’m recovering alcoholic & drug addict. I couldn’t come home to find “works” (syringe, spoon etc.) on my kitchen table, it could cost me my life. He attempted suicide, shotgun in the mouth in the basement of our apt building. It was beyond harrowing . He missed because his sweat and tears caused gun to slip away from his mouth when he pulled the trigger. I Could Not Save This Man…I knew that, theoretically. My ego told me I could, & I tried. We were using together soon. A friend from N.A. Dropped by & said this: if you swim out to a drowning person once, & they pull you under, swim back to shore. Better one live than 2 die. I swam away, he called me in my sweet little apt that was part of my nephews house & begged me to come back, it would be different this time. I almost did, but called my sponsor, she said NO, not unless you want to use again, & you were lucky to make it back a second time, recovery from this disease is a gift, not many get it; fewer keep it. The call came on Sept. 11th, my own personal 9/11 before the Twin Towers fell. He’d sat in his car in the garage & left the motor running; he finally succeeded, he escaped himself, cocaine nightmare, & left many many people, including his Mother, also in recovery, to be gutted. Left holding a hole in our guts that it takes years to heal, & it never completely does. I did what I learned in recovery, get help. I went to S.O.S, survivors of suicide. It saved my life, quite literally. My heart knows this personal holocaust; my heart still thinks, in a tiny cornet, that me coming back would’ve changed this story. It wouldn’t have. Might’ve changed the details, slowed down the inevitable, but also there was only one family forever changed & planning a funeral, instead of two. For that, I’m grateful
I’m so sorry for your losses and the losses to the world. This is a great blog regarding suicide. My mother nearly died from a suicide attempt. I was wondering why Joe didn’t answer my messages on Twitter. I will treasure those the prior messages we had. mamaofthreebrat/fae on Twitter.
Luanna
We lost a loved one to natural causes a few days before Christmas also. Suicide touches us all in ways that hurt. The chances to not say goodbye, to really get to know a person. The good news is that you do have friends, kinda like pen pals were in the past, here on the internet. We do get to know each other but not as well as we do face to face. Keep treasuring those who are right there with you. I’m crying with you.
I have great compassion for you, reading what you described. It is sobering to me about Joe, he wrote for Saturday Night Live a year after I did. I am one year younger than he was. He did some great stuff over the years, I just learned about his story from reading his blog post, I was not previously aware of who he was.
Tara – and Bonnie – my heart goes out to you.
People who say ‘permanent solution to temporary problem’, though…don’t get it. Not surprising, as it’s not easy to get and pull back from. But someone who is serious about suicide almost never gets there because of a single event or a single problem.
See, the place that is potentially suicidal isn’t a ledge or a cliff. It is a vast plain. A salt flat on a strangely overcast evening, if you like. Dim and grey and dry and flat, no dramatic drops but no hope of a rise either, and no prospect of it ever, ever getting better, not as far as the eye can see. And generally one has to have been walking in that vast, hopeless plain for a longer time than anyone realises, before deciding this is as good a place as any to stop.
I rejoice that you’ve never been in that place. Getting out of it alive is hard, hard. I know.
I am so very sorry. You’re right…it’s selfish and so very cruel to those left behind. The anger, the guilt, the sense of helplessness. Often, suicide is called a permanent solution to what may seem to those remaining a temporary problem. But not temporary to the one who left. I hope that anyone contemplating this awful step will have enough compassion and comprehension left to understand the damage left in their wake. Life is too very precious.
I have a friend that suicided after many years of suffering in depression. She was a highly respected & intelligent veterinarian. She gave up-it became too difficult. Sometimes a person’s life is much more difficult than another’s and we cannot live their lives for them-or argue their arguments in their heads continuously. I was never angry at her-we talked about her suffering years before and she was in therapy and on medication. I only feel compassion for their suffering. You, Tara, on the other hand, must feel traumatized, three suicided friends is a succession of tremendous pain to your heart, mind & soul. They are at peace. I hope that you can release your anger at them & understand it was their life, their pain & their choice to be free of it. I am so sorry that this has been your experience. Blessings & Peace to you.
With writers who choose this way out, it seems like they have figured out the ending for their life story. And they can’t think of one that is better. Hemingway, Thompson both decided that.
It should give us the resolve to push through whatever seems to be holding us back in our lives.
Saw this news via your feed. Really unbelievable, but you hit the nail on the head- its always the ones that seem most full of life. Find some solace in the memories you shared with them.
Does the anger ever subside, or is it just that there comes a day where we get to the point where we can see what we got from knowing our friends re-eclipses the anger and the loss we got from their deaths?
The anger does subside, because you can’t carry it around forever. It flares up for me any time I hear of another suicide, because Paul was my first experience with it and it scarred me for life.
I’m so sorry Tara. xo
Well said, Tara. There a hellhounds on our trail, we must train
our tiny flashlights on them, then catch and release them. Love our friends, but know this – we are neither responsible for their illness nor truly able to “fix” them once they have gone to the dark side.
Respect
Paul
Excellent post. Suicide is one of the most difficult subjects in the world. Tx for pointing out the pain and anguish those left behind have to deal with.
I’m so sorry Tara…
{ 2 trackbacks }