Suicide isn't something I've had a lot of direct experience with (not a complaint) and I can only think of one person I knew even indirectly who'd done such a thing. So I was really, really shocked to learn that my first boyfriend -- the person I lost my virginity to -- killed himself in a horrifically shocking fashion. Not that all suicide or general occurrences of death aren't terrible; but this one seemed a bit unbelievable. Before I get into that, though, I want to say a few words about Mike.
I was about 17 when we met, and I'd just been released from lockup. (Search the blog if you really want to know.) I can't recall how I wound up at Maria's house, because I didn't even know her at the time, but after I was there a group of girls from a Catholic school showed up and everyone decided to head over to a birthday party. It was March and freezing cold and snowy and I was wearing moccasins (real ones, no soles) but for some reason I decided to tag along with this group of complete strangers -- very odd when you consider that I rarely hang with females, let alone an entire herd of them. Anyway. When we got to this party, which was being held in the basement of the birthday boy's house, I was introduced to an entirely new group of people I'd never met before. Mike being one of them, as it was his house and his birthday.
We hit it off immediately, despite him being a very peaceful, sweet Pisces who probably wouldn't have been capable of swatting a fly. And I mean that literally. He wasn't my type then and he certainly wouldn't be my type today, but he was fucking gorgeous and I was a silly teenage girl. We spent that entire night acting like, well, teenagers, and we started dating immediately. This annoyed one of the girls who'd brought me as, apparently, she was his ex GF and they'd had plans to get back together that night. (Sorry, Janine, you should have told me before we got there!) Mike and I dated for about a year, which was quite a long time for me. We spent every single day together, his big Irish / Italian Catholic family adored me and they were all fabulous. In fact, when he and I broke up I actually delayed the breakup because I really liked being around his family. But we did break up and he started dating Jamie, this preppie chick who instantly morphed into a faux hippie chick. But let me not digress.
After a few months of being single I realized how ridiculous our relationship had been. And I don't mean these things in a cruel way, but they are true: We were totally incompatible on nearly every level. He was too sweet, too easily manipulated, too high, too drunk, too intellectually challenged (VoTech and special classes for slower kids), and too damned disinterested in his own future. Although, 6 months into our relationship he was talking about marriage and kids! I wasn't even 18 yet! That, and his life ambition was working for his brother-in-law as a carpenter and someday building his own log cabin. I'm not knocking that per se but it wasn't something I found appealing. But, then, you have to keep in mind that at that time I had my singing career fully planned out and anyone who couldn't see equally far ahead was, IMO, daft.
Mike and I didn't see each other much after we broke up. He wanted to get back together a few times but by then I'd even outgrown my hippie phase (a phase that had lasted about 5 years) and had new friends who were way too old for me and I couldn't be arsed. We were amicable enough, but I rather regretted losing my virginity to him (unmemorable would be a good word for it) so every time I saw him I thought of how bad the sex had been. I started Googling him about 5 years ago for some odd reason; I guess to see what he was up to. I was curious to know if he'd stopped the drugs or gone to college or gotten married or had kids, etc. I could never find any info on him, so I figured he was still pretty much doing whatever he used to do. I tried Googling him again probably once a year after that but still couldn't find anything. And then a few days ago I was suddenly overcome with the urge to Google him and this time I found something unusual.
There had been a fundraising concert for a memorial scholarship in his name. Obviously, memorials are for those people no longer living and I was really taken aback; he was one year older than me. My first thought was that he'd overdosed on something. He wasn't a hardcore user when I was dating him, but these things often evolve. So I Googled a bit more and eventually found his name on a suicide memorial website. Now I was just stunned. Suicide? That just didn't sound like the virtual ray of sunshine I'd dated. I couldn't find an obituary or other news to elaborate on the suicide, so I contacted an old schoolmate through Facebook. And what she told me just utterly shocked me.
Apparently, a few years ago, Mike went to his girlfriend's place of work (a restaurant which is literally about 2 minutes' walk from my old house) and shot himself outside of the restaurant. Now, it doesn't take a shrink to know how utterly fucked up that is. I feel really bad for his girlfriend (it's rumored that she had just broken up with him, but I don't know that for certain) and I think Mike was a bit of a dick for doing that to her. It's one thing to kill yourself; it's another to deliberately make someone witness it and probably relive it for the rest of their lives. Clearly, he was making some sort of point. I've no idea if she'd done anything to incite that sort of anger (punishment, even) but I can't imagine anything being quite that bad.
I feel badly for Mike that he was in such a state of hopelessness that he was willing to kill himself and in such a state of anger / hurt that he felt subjecting her (and everyone else at the restaurant) to his suicide was an ok thing to do. I don't think the Mike I knew would have done that. But if there is anything I've learned over time, it's that people are rarely who you thought / think them to be. I hope he's alright now, wherever he is; I do have specific beliefs about the afterlife and I'm sure that he is.
xx Isabella