A former boxing team mate, close friend, neighbour, student, friend's wife and today I added a family member to the list of people who played God and took their own life before the big guy upstairs did it. Now we all have to stop our lives and give recognition to him. Give recognition to a man who's last act on this Earth was him telling the entire world that his life, his life that included us, wasn't worth living anymore. He ruined everything he worked for and stood for with this one act but that was his decision.
Tomorrow we will have to close the boxing club for the day. Members will have to be contacted, sponsors will have to be notified. A friend will have to lend us his car. Snickers' family will have to take time off work sit in a funeral home for a few days nonstop, so not to miss any visitors who come by. I'll have to sit by his daughter's side and tell her everything will be ok when I don't think it will. And that's just the start. The point here isn't the inconvenience, the point here is that we shouldn't have been put in the position to have to do this. This is just pure nonsense.
I was raised to believe that life is the ultimate gift. It's a gift from God so you better thank him every single day you wake up, for being allowed another day to see the sun rise, hear the giggles of a friend, and feel the touch of a loved one. We all have bad days, doesn't mean it's a bad life, and we all have our own issues but you deal with it. Eight years ago, when I hit my personal rock bottom, I was in Korea. It was a low like nothing else I had ever in my entire life experienced but did I ponder suicide? No, I bought a dog -- Jo Mi Nam. That four-legged, crotch-licking, French bulldog with only a face a mother could love brought me back to life and whenever I wanted to sleep for days, I was reminded that he needed me to get up. And he was just a dog. The family member who left us today has children -- grown children. He's got four daughters and one son. I thought everything changed when you had kids. You started living your life with them and for them; someone other than yourself became your first priority. I can't even leave Cheonan for more than a couple of hours without starting to worry for Balboa, Pyen Chi and Pacquiao, and they're dogs.
I just don't understand.
I came to Korea with nothing... N-O-T-H-I-N-G... nothing but the promise of a measly paycheck and a dinky apartment it took me well over a week to figure out how to even turn the heat on in the dead cold of winter. I'd give anything, ANYTHING, to have my family and close friends here, to be able to walk into a store and understand 100% what the person was saying to me, to be living in the culture I grew up in, to be able to walk down memory lane in the city I grew up in any time I desired but I can't. He can and he did. He had the wife, the kids, the grand kids, the friends, the home, the cars, the great job... what most would say is the perfect life. I don't know what more he could have wanted. Apparently who he had and what he had wasn't enough -- we weren't enough of a reason why to continue life.
I think suicide is selfish in that it only takes one problem and passes it on, amplifies it and adds more problems to those it leaves behind. It's not fair and tomorrow I refuse to morn the passing away of him. Instead, I will go there for the sake of his wife, his children, and Snickers. I will not stand in front of his picture and do the traditional custom of bowing out of respect. I bow to no one but God and I sure as hell am not going to bow to a man who decided to play God.
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