Death in the Afternoon

...I think that God doesn't want me to live any more" My cousin Joyce's voice was tinny over the long-distance lines.



I probably should've offered her some kind of condolence. I'm not perfect, though. Like most people, I only pay half my attention when listenning to other people's problems, and in my experience, including two years on a hot-line, someone invoking suicide is usually just dramatizing their problems or trying to pressure others, and any re-statement of their words just leads to denial. With this in mind then, I did not at first take her threat as anything more than overstatement, and I simply made a mental note that Joyce was having a crisis, grunted to show my attention, took a long sip of coffee, and continued my mental search for a ten letter word for traffic. I would pay for that a few minutes later, however.



"John," Joyce said suddenly, "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?"



Now, no one likes that question. You can never guess what someone will accept as proof. I had to say something, though,



"Haven't you heard me on the line?" I asked.



"I'm not saying you haven't been holding the phone next to your your ear," she said, "I'm asking if you actually know what I'm talking about."



"Well, you've been talking about how lazy and needy your husband's being and how upset you are about your son being in jail again, aren't you?"



Joyce hissed at me in annoyance. "Well, that's literally what I've been saying. But do you know what it all means?"



Having classified Joyce's words as mere melodrama, I honestly did not recall them, and so I could not use them as an explanation for her actions. Lacking any other idea of what to say though, I just tried to stick to the obvious and the sympathetic in hopes of encouraging her to talk about her problems more and perhaps even to let a few of them out.



"It means you're unhappy." I said. "It means that two of the most important people in your life seem to just be expecting you to meet their needs without meeting any of yours...and I can sympathize with you on this! I can especially see how you were upset about Tom not getting a job or doing anything around the house but still grabbing you expecting sex. and I think the whole thing with the tenz machine was either just justice or education...." Joyce was currently wearing a tenz maching, and, because of this, the only result of her husband's recent attempt to force his wishes on her was the negative conditioning of a severe shock.



She huffed out a breath. "...John, is that really all that you think I'm saying?"



Joyce's repetition of her question made me wonder if she was just going to continue asking it, so I decided to try something that was useful in such cases on the hotline.



"Well, it is what you said. It may or may not be what you meant though; but that's a different question. Is there something you feel I'm just not getting about what you're saying?"



She sighed, and I took that to mean she was losing hope about something. "Yes, I do, and I'm starting to see that calling you was a mistake. I'm going to hang up now."



Joyce's apparent disregard for my friendship and her willingness to turn my previous hour into a waste angered me slightly. I tried to spare myself from both problems.



"Well, obviously, I can't stop you from doing that; but do you really think the people back where you live will have a different reaction if you have this same kind of conversation with them?"



"Don't try to put this on me!" she said. "I'm not the one who's not listening."



"...And all I'm saying is that if you assume people who love you aren't making some kind of effort for you when they are, you may end up discouraging them from doing anything for you whether you talk to them long distance or up close. I do want to help you. If you feel there's something I haven't heard though, you might have to say it more than once. You have prepared me to hear it."



She took a while to speak, and her voice was still somewhat accusative. "No," she said, "Y'know what? If you want me to talk to you, you'll have to figure out what you didn't hear."



I pondered the mixed blessing of her current willingness to stay on the line.



"Well, Joyce, look; whatever this thing is, you need help with it, right? And it's going to be a lot simpler for you to get help if you just tell me what's on your mind rather than making me play guessing games, okay?"



"Is that really what you think? That I'm just playing guessing games?"



"Well, you're putting me in a position where I have to do that, whether you're trying to make me or not."



"I'm just trying to see if you heard something I said to you, and apparently you really didn't."



"...And why can't you just tell me what it is, though? Then I can help you, and you can get what you need."



"Because right now I need to know if anyone ever pays attention to me, that's why."



I was finally getting a hint of the problem's magnitude...."Well, okay then, but this must still have something to do with your husband or your son. That's pretty much all you talked about, how Donny is back in reform school and Rob won't do anything."



"That's not it, John, and now I am going to hang up."



Lacking other options, I decided to appeal to her long-standing desire to show up the wise ass on the other end of the phone. "Well," I said, "before you go then, would you tell me what it is you wanted me to hear, just for my curiosity? If nothing else, hey, you'd have bragging rights or laughing rights or whatever, and you could always tell everybody how I always thought that I knew what you think and feel but I got it wrong."



"Are you kidding me? You want me to share this with you just because you wonder about it?"



"...Well, if you're having some big kind of crisis, I must 've screwed up in a really huge way by not figuring out what you've been saying, right? And I don't want to make that same mistake again, so I'm really just asking you to help me with that. I'm assuming you'd like to cure a little of my ignorance, and I'm asking you to be my teacher."



"Don't play me, john!"



"I'm not playing you..I'm just asking for you to do me a favor with benefits for both of us, that's all."



Joyce took quite a while before speaking, but she must've seen an opportunity for some kind of emotional relief. "John, you have no idea how serious what I'm going through is. If you did, you wouldn't be this jerk you're being."



I purposely made my voice as compassionate as possible, which only reflected my actual feelings. "Well, if you can tell me how serious it is, and then someone will know. Tell me, and maybe I can help you."



"John, again, I really don't think you've been listening, and I really should just hang up and go on with my day."



"...And again, I can't actually stop you from hanging up. I will make you a deal, though. If you tell me what the problem is, I'll let you go without any bother from me."



"John...I just don't think you understand. I just called because sometimes you have ideas about things that other people don't think of, and I called to see if you'd have any on the stuff that're happening to me right now. You don't, and I'm going."



"Hey! You don't know what ideas I have on something till I say them. To hear them, though, you may just have to tell me what your problem is. And certainly, if I had a problem, I'd try to get as many ideas about it as possible. Wouldn't you do the same?"



"...John, you never ask anyone for advice. You're a total jerk!"



I didn't bother arguing against an obvious truth. "Well, again then, how 'bout just getting me off the line? I've given you a way to do that, and you just have to tell me what the hell this problem of yours is. If you don't and you have some kind of trouble with whatever this is, I'll be able to say that I could've helped you, but you wouldn't let me."



"...John, you don't really want to know what the problem is?"



"Yes, I do. And if I don't, you can call me on it, anytime."



"Okay, you are."



"Me?"



"You!"



"...What the hell did I do?"



"Same as everybody else, you didn't listen. Nobody's listening to me, and I just don't want to put up with it anymore."



"Okay...look...regardless of anything I did or didn't do in the past, I'm listening now. I think that I was listening to you, or at least trying to, while you were telling me all your problems...but I'm not going to argue about that. You apparently need me to hear something right now, and you feel that I haven't heard it. I'm just going to ask you to tell me what that thing is, though, and then I'll offer the best help I can."



She again took time before speaking, and now her tone was one of obligation. "Okay, John, I'll say it again; I don't think that God wants me to be alive anymore. Now I said that before, and the fact that you didn't hear it the first time is probably one of the reasons why I feel this way."



"Look, I'm sorry I didn't hear that. I won't try to excuse that, but I thought you were just bitching, okay? I do want to help you with this if you'll let me, though. Can I at least give that a try? You have put time into this phone call, and, it'd all be a petty waste of all that time if you hang up, especially if I can help you."



Joyce took yet another pause. This one seemed longer than the other two.



"I am willing to try...." she said.



"Okay then, this first thing I need to to ask you is if you actually want to die?"



"No!" she said. "I don't. That's why I'm on the phone with you right now."



"Well...that's a good thing right there then, cause, just to say it...I would really be hurt if you died."



"...Yeah but, God, I just don't believe you."



I was a little miffed to hear that. "What do you mean?"



"I mean you're just such a bullshitter. I realize you do me favors and stuff, but you're always saying things to have an effect on someone, not because it's the truth. I don't have any way of knowing whether you mean that or not."



"Well, have you ever considered that, If I'm such a great bullshitter, I could get out of doing you any favors pretty easily, so the fact that I'm willing to do those favors is at least some proof of my concern for you? Let me ask another question, though. To be sure, are you saying that you think God simply doesn't care if you live, or that He actually wants you to die?"



"I believe that he actually wants me to die!"



For a moment I thought about pressing star-seven-six to bring the authorities in. Unless she actually began an act of suicide though, I would probably either be reporting an uncommitted action or arguing against the only other witness to this conversation on her own words. On realizing this, I decided to look for psychological motivations for her problem. If nothing else, I could use the questions to give her a feeling of being cared about.



"Do you feel God has actually told you to do this?"



"No, not in so many words. I just think that if He wanted me to live, He'd make a way for me."



I had an aha moment, but I'd spent too much time counseling others through problems to assume that my current insight was in any way final.



"You feel He's not letting you do...what?"



"Anything! God, I have to work for money and I have to do work in the home, and these idiots still just expect more. It's not like I'm doing this for basically good people or anybody who's learning something from it. Tell me you'd put up with this!"



"Okay," I said, careful to keep the toldya so out of my voice, "Your family is one reason for this feeling...and apparently I'm another. Is that pretty much the whole thing?"



"No, there's also problems at work, but that's just the usual. It's not like anybody in this town cares, though."



"So...would it be fair to say that the problem is...that you just don't feel anyone cares about you?"



"Yes. And don't just tell me how you care. You might, but right now words don't mean anything to me."



Her words were a description of her psychology more than her situation, and for that very reason I realized that she now needed more than words. "Well, is there anything I can do for you that would show that I care?"



My words left me vulnerable to manipulation, and I'd certainly had enough problems with people using the threat of suicide to coerce me not to feel a real fear. Joyce, though, had been a good friend over many years, and I was willing to take the risk. I only hoped for my words to have an effect.



"So you're saying all I have to do to be heard is threaten to die and you'll finally listen to me? Would you accept a thing like that?'



"I was willing to listen to you before, I just may not have been able to prove it to you. I care what happens to you. I would miss you if you died."



"I don't know what to say about that...again, right now I don't know if I believe you."



I decided to try stating the probable results of suicide to her. "Look, right now I believe that you're just feeling this because you family is treating you so badly. Unfortunately though, if they can ignore you going through this, they can probably ignore your death, too. And if you assume that I don't care either, you'd have to assume the same about me. Just how would you feel if that happened?"



Her voice became very detached. "God expects me to follow his will, If this is His will then I will have to do it."



"He might, but you're dodging the question."



"...That has to be the big concern for me!"



"Okay, what about Him being an all-loving, all-forgiving sort? I mean we all break a couple commandments, right? Isn't he obliged to forgive you if you ignore one as extreme as this one?" Without realizing it, I had slipped into using that least persuasive of all things, logic.



"But if it is his will, and I don't follow it, He will punish me."



"...But how do you actually know it's God telling you to kill yourself?"



She once again took a moment to speak. "...I don't."



"Well, then why in hell do you think about this at all? If you can't tell that it's God asking you to do this, then even by Christian doctrine you're under no obligation to do anything, right?"



"...The Lord expects me to follow his will!" Her voice had a slight strain, perhaps in annoyance at repeating herself.



"...Right, but He doesn't expect you to follow anybody else's, right? And if you can't tell if it's him telling you to do this, then you're okay."



Joyce's voice sounded weary. "...It doesn't work like that. He expects me to tell the difference. Mistaking the voice of the Holy Spirit for anything else is the one unpardonable sin."



"Well, just for the sake of argument, is it just possible you might be wrong? Maybe you should check with your pastor about this."



"You're going to think this is stupid, but I really can't bring myself to do that. After I talked to him, I'd have to face him every Sunday"



"Yeah, but he might be able to cite the Bible to tell you why you should or shouldn't do this, right?"



"...Look, I just can't do that, okay?"



"Well, have you considered talking this over with a pastor you don't know? Someone who could just advise you and then just have nothing more to do with you?"



"And how could I know that that one actually knows what he's talking about?"



"...You could check with more that one, get a majority opinion."



"And how could I tell if the majority of them know anything? You're the one who thinks people are all idiots."



"...Look, isn't there some way you yourself could just check the Bible?"



"That may be the problem right there. I think I already have."



"And so, even after reading the Bible, you're saying that you think God will be okay with it if you show up with self-slaughter on your spiritual rap sheet?"



"...John, you don't believe in God, so don't try to argue this on theology."



"Hey, what I believe isn't important. What's important is what's true, and I do have to wonder how God, if he exists, is going to take it if you show up before him having killed, having given a disbeliever a reason to assume that he either doesn't exist or that, if he does, he will kill those who love Him."



"You're just trying to make me change my plan."



"Well, yes, obviously I am. It's a dumb idea, and I'd like to stop it. Again, I care about you, whether you believe it or not."



"John...you still don't see the problem. You think I'm just having weird problems."



Okay, I'll be frank with you. I do think you're basically just giving yourself a whole bunch of problems you could just walk away from. I think you're just depressed because you're choosing to take a very extreme view of all the shit with your family and so fourth. Tell me what I'm not seeing."



"What you're not seeing is that God is the only one who's stood by me through all this crap. You want me to abandon the one anybody that did that much for me. Will He forgive me? Maybe he will, but that also means He'll forgive me if I make a mistake while I'm trying to follow His will. But if I don't try to follow his will, even if it's painful to me, I'm not going to feel like I'm showing my love for HIm. In the face of how good He's been to me, I don't want him to have to forgive me. I want Him to see my love for him rather than just forcing him to give it."



I suddenly thought that I saw to the heart of her problem. "Let me see if I get this straight...on one hand, your saying that even if God doesn't want you to kill yourself, you figure He'll forgive you if he thinks you're trying to follow His will. On the other, you're figuring that if He does want you to die..."



"Yes!"



"Christ! I can see why you protestants are always calling for 'a wit-ness.' I mean, the devil supposedly spends all his time trying to pass himself off as God or as something about as great, right? Well, ask any cop; if somebody spends all his time with criminals, they start to talk and act like criminals, and I'm pretty sure that the devil has spent enough time around God that he knows exactly how He dresses and walks. How in hell does He expect you to tell the diference without a finger print kit, huh? No wonder He offers forgiveness. We're such shlubbs, he had no choice! Isn't that what he actually said from the cross? 'Hey Dad, go easy on them. they're too stupid to get it right.' God, the guy started Christian faith and Jewish humor!"



My rant was not particularly funny, but Joyce started to giggle. She then began a slow laugh which grew louder and more insistent because, according to her, she just couldn't stop. I hoped for this sudden change of mood to be a solution to her depression, but obviously I couldn't count on that yet.



When Joyce stopped laughing, she finally spoke. "John, I think you may have actually helped me on this! I kind of can't believe it, but maybe I was just seriously down in the dumps!"



"...Well, that's what I thought, but after all this I can't just let you hang up the phone right now like nothing happened."



"I hear what you're saying, but you're just going to have to have some faith in me. You can't exactly drive all the way from Chicago to keep an eye on me."



"Look, I can't just assume that a quick laugh is going to prevent you from killing yourself. I'm going to have to ask you to swear to God that you won't."



"I...I can't do that. It's against the Bible."



"So is suicide. You can do one, you can do the other."



"That doesn't work. Look, if nothing else, after everything I've just been through, I don't know if I have it in my heart to offend God again."



"Look, this is the one way I can even kind of count on you not to kill yourself, so I'm probably not going to give you peace till you do...."



"Okay John...fine...I...promise..."



"To God!"



"...Ok-ay," she said, "I promise to God!"



I was still a little unsettled about her for quite some time after that, and about three days after the call, I rang her, but there was no answer. I tried again about fifteen minutes later without reaching anyone and then made two more attempts with the same result. At that point, I called the police in her town to ask them to check up on her, but they told me I had to go to the nearest police station where I was to request something called a well-being check. I put on my coat, and headed out to the nearest bus stop to make the time-consuming trip through public transportation.



The police in Joyce's rural home-town took half and hour to reach her, then knocked on the door to find her son, on an approved home-release, in the family's living room. On their request, he took them to his mother, and they asked her her mood then did a cursory, noninvasive search for signs of self-inflicted wounds or drugging. In the end, they reported back to me that she was fine, that her idiot son had simply forgotten to recharge their cordless phone, and that she want me to call her on reaching home.



Once back home, I called her and got a torrent of both annoyance and appreciation. On one hand, she was angry at me for an action that interrupted her sleep and left her explaining a lot of things to the police, but on the other, she also realized that this was a sign of my familial love for her. We did close the call as friends....