Today, an ex-Toronto radio host died, apparently by suicide. I heard it on the news this morning and Andrew sent me a
link to confirm. I don't and never have listen to The Edge 102.1 so I am not going to say that I knew of Martin Streek. I only found out about this radio host because of his death.
Suicide is something I don't think I will ever understand. I don't get why an individual would want to end their life. There are many questions I have about suicide and as part of my healing process is to read more about it. This may help me better understand why my brother chose to end his life. I had a brief discussion with my brother's best friend on Twitter and both of us agreed that we just want to 'understand', meaning we want to understand why my brother made this choice. I have fully accepted the fact that we will never know why he did this, or what he was feeling leading up to his last moments here on earth. There was no note (unlike Martin who left a coded message on his facebook status) and there was no signs of my brother wanting to commit suicide.
I detest it when people ask me if my brother was depressed. Maybe he was but you know what...none of us saw it. Sure, there may have been some little signs but the signs were not big enough for us to worry. For those who knew my brother, he was always happy and joking around. He had many friends (by the turnout at his funeral) and was always busy doing something. Then he got laid off. Things did not seem to be going well for him but then he opened up his own used record store. A dream of his since he loved music so much.
So my tie in with Martin Streek and my brother is it makes me wonder, for people who are so cheerful and full of life, how could they just snap and decide that they have had enough? Does losing one's job have a serious affect on them to make them think there is no other way to go on living? Were they really depressed and had a good way of hiding it? Suicide has so many questions and very little answers. I really wish that it didn't come to this for my brother. I wish that he had received help for whatever he was going through. And because of this life experience for me, I want to make sure that I can understand to a certain extent why people decide to end their life. I really would not wish this upon anyone to lose a loved one because they wanted to end it. To me, suicide only happens in movies, not in real life. After actually experiencing losing my brother, it does happen in real life and it's the worse thing anyone could go through - the "not knowing why"...
My heart goes out to the family and friends of Martin Streek. I know what they are going through and it must be so difficult for them.
