Not just dead out of answers or dead to the world (as in completely spent or tired to the nth degree).
But really dead.
Lifeless.
Breathless.
Still.
Permanently asleep six feet (or more) under a cold slab.
Sealed in a metal vault to keep the corpse feeders at bay.
Maybe being planted, if you're lucky, in a peaceful, beautiful spot among trees, shrubs, flowers, butterflies, bumble bees and a gurgling stream.
I guess folks who contemplate taking their own lives don't give much thought to such.
For instance, take all those hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of distressed souls who have jumped to their death in the last several decades from the Golden Gate Bridge just outside San Francisco. I'm told it's a 220-foot drop to the cold deep waters below, meaning only 2 percent survive.
It would be a stretch to believe that many of them considered (truly considered) what would happen to them if they jumped.
They just wanted out. Out of this life. Away from their problems, worries, troubles.
Where they were going, they didn't much care--long as they went.
So sad. So depressing. So shocking to think of so many people jumping off the Golden Gate--perhaps the world's favorite spot for committing suicide.
And then there are the heartless, selfish motorists traveling across the bridge who see them teetering on a beam, thinking of the ultimate escape to darkness. Thinking of saying goodbye permanently.
Many of those cold-blooded motorists, according to a recent report in USA TODAY, yell: "Go ahead! Jump!"
Speaking of things deathly, I read an article (also from USA TODAY) that reported on a study of life-after-death experiences. It seems, according to interviews with hundreds of people who have been pronounced clinically dead but then were revived, that "the dead" can still have thoughts, visions, ideas.
The heart stops beating, but the brain--in some cases--still functions.
Here's a passage from that article last week on near death experiences:
"Scientists looked at 2,060 people who went into cardiac arrest (which they describe as "biologically synonymous with death") at 15 different hospitals in the U.S., U.K., and Austria. Of the 330 people who survived, about 40% recalled awareness while they were clinically dead. (The lead doctor tells the Telegraph that number could be higher if some of those people's memories weren't dulled by drugs or sedatives.)
Of those, 46% had memories not commonly associated with NDEs (Near Death Experiences).
• One person recalled, after he took his last breath, that he was told that he was going to die, and the quickest way to the hereafter was to say the last short word he could remember.
• Another person in the same circumstance remembers seeing "All plants, no flowers."
• Another saw lions and tigers, while one person's whose heart had stopped beating had the sensation of being dragged through deep water.
The researchers say caution is in order before we can conclude anything. Consider how the article ends: "This (having thought processes after death is pronounced) is paradoxical, since the brain typically ceases functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping and doesn't resume again until the heart has been restarted," says the study's lead researcher. "These experiences warrant further investigation."
Ok. Many of us always believed in life after death. Now we have an iota of titillating evidence.
Meanwhile, life goes on. And so does death, and so does jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.
It's good, folks. to be alive! And it should never get so hopeless that we want to punch out of our own accord.
If it does (and I've been there, been diagnosed as clinically depressed): Don't isolate. Get a dog. Exercise. Breathe deeply. No sudden decisions. Try to have at least a few positive thoughts. Read. Blog. Listen to music. Attach yourself to someone who loves you. Stay away from those who would pull you down. DON'T JUMP! DON'T CUT YOURSELF! DON'T POISON YOURSELF! DON'T SMOTHER YOURSELF! DON'T OVERMEDICATE.
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