Witness to a suicide attempt

We were a happy group strolling by the lake, cracking jokes and laughing loud.

We paused when we saw a little crowd on the stone stairs that led down to the water. A man in a dripping track suit held a drenched old lady by her arm and firmly walked her up the stairs. The lady was crying.

“I want to die.”

She kept saying.

She resisted being taken away from the lake.

That man and the others around tried to soothe her.

The woman had a gnarled face, her wrinkled skin hanging loosely. She was older than my grandmother.

My friends had moved on already. I could not.

The man who had saved her spoke to no one in particular, “People spend their lifetimes sacrificing everything for their children. And when the children grow indifferent, who wouldn’t break down!”

A woman in a track suit sighed, “Such is life!”

A man set about to report the matter to the police post nearby. The others stopped him. “What would that solve? The police will tell her family and they will only get angry at her.”

It made sense. What could the police do?

Was there any solution?

The frail old lady- how unloved, uncared, un-understood she must have felt to have thought of ending her life! How desperate, how helpless she must have been!

When she would go home today, would anyone notice that she seemed too silent? Would they even think that she could have attempted a suicide just an hour ago?

She would now have to keep on living that same life- her suicide attempt had failed.

It was not this thought that froze me. I shivered at the realization that perhaps I did not always show the care I felt for my family.