Suicide note response #21, heavily edited for brevity and the gist of it:

Date: 2003-09-25, 1:53PM

I am witnessing right now a life that is tragically and painfully being drained away by liver cancer. Day by day, my grandfather’s soul leaves us. He used to be so vibrant, always laughing and telling jokes, a sparkle and love for life in his eyes. That was before he started drinking and became anti-social and resentful of the family for “leaving” him. He basically drank himself to death. Despite all the hurt, pain, and anger that his drinking caused, my family is 100% here for him through his last days. All of the pain has gone away and turned in to love, sympathy and sorrow for what happened and what could have been.

How does this apply to you, my friend? My grandpa could have changed his life, but he took the easy way out - alcohol. When I look into his sunken eyes, I see so much pain and regret. I’m so sad that he is dying with all his pain and mistakes left unresolved. I wish I could have helped him while he was still able to make a change, but he had to do it for himself, but he had no desire to even try. Now that there’s no turning back, I see him living every last second in complete fear. I don’t know what happens when we come to the end of our rope, but I see my grandfather clinging on to life with every last breath he has. He’s scared as hell and we can see it in his eyes. Please listen to my words.... merely “enough” is never enough. You CAN make a change in your life, whether it’s talking to a counselor, taking anti-depressants, consider what is making you stressed/sad/unhappy. You can turn your life around, remember, it is what you make of it.

This is terrible about her grandfather, but the moral of this story of consequences and regret is not directly applicable to suicides. The grandfather made his decisions to act (and not act), consequences were manifested, and he lived to regret it. For successful suicides, consequences and regret are precluded, although the consequences and regret of failure probably should be considered.

As for the applicable part of this response, for the downtrodden, for the messed up life, I also believe in the human spirit and the ability to change and turn a life around if the will to do so is there. For the person considering suicide, consequences and potential regret should be considered, as well as whether the issue is a matter of having a screwed up life and whether there is the ability to change things and turn things around.

Again, this response implies that suicide is an "easy way out", which it isn't. It's more of a desperate way out, but how someone acts in desperation is hardly the easy way, unless by "easy", you mean easy to choose.

For me, living is extremely easy, existing is a combination of easy and hard, and I don't expect anyone to understand that, but there's nothing easy for me about dying or choosing to die. I am well aware that even after death, the trials I believe I will face might be harder than this life can ever be (but like any test, there's always the chance that it will be a breeze, depending on ability and preparedness). I also know that in my next life, should that be the case, I might end up in far more difficult circumstances to pursue my journey. So what's my rush? More on that later perhaps.

Anyway, the message in this response is good for suicides in general, but I don't like that she missed the part in this particular suicide's note which mentioned that he had already tried turning things around. So it's like she's moralizing and giving advice without even listening to him. Hm, she should join the mental health profession.

I intentionally left in the part of this response where she mentions the family is 100% behind him, even though he dug his own grave and caused so much distress. People who call suicides "selfish" might also call this grandfather selfish (or they might not, because that would bring to light that everything we choose to do is selfish, and for condemnation purposes, they just want to confine selfishness to suicides). Anyway, I wish those people would try imagining treating suicides this humanely, instead of taking the easy way out and calling them selfish, as if it resolves their participation in the issue.