A Life Cut Short
Depression and suicidal thoughts come from a dark, dark place... from a pattern of trauma... from a chemical imbalance. I understand all that, and yet I don't understand it. I never have. My reaction to suicides is usually anger.
This weekend I sang at a memorial service for a 32-year-old gay man I did not know named Wes Chapman. He was in the Cincinnati Boychoir as a kid. He attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts. He attended UC's College-Conservatory of Music. He spent some time in the Navy. He spent his days working as a personal trainer. And on December 30, he jumped off a bridge (I'm told) because of his discomfort with his sexuality.
The service, held at the clubhouse of a golf course neighborhood where I assume his parents live, started 15 minutes late. At the time the blessing was supposed to begin, the room was already full and still a line of 50 people snaked out the door slowly making its way through a hallway with photo displays from a life cut short.
All those people whose lives he touched, and yet he still felt alone? I didn't see any LGBT contingent (though how can you really tell?) aside from his childhood best friend, a lovely woman who had reached out to the men's chorus asking if we would be able to honor his memory with a song with only a few days notice. She said they had both struggled with homophobia as children but grew through their experiences together.
Wes and I also had 8 Facebook friends in common and I feel like I have to talk to each one of them to find out if they knew anything about him. These are people who are out in the community... so I know that Wes must have had some opportunities for networking. I Facebook-stalked each of our mutual friends and none of them had posted anything about it. Did they even know who he was? Did they even know what had happened? I know we struggle to find meaning when there is a death or an inexplicable tragedy. This is one of the main reasons my chorus exists... as a safe haven for gay men to be who they are. We would have been a perfect supportive network for him. Why didn't we find each other?
This weekend I sang at a memorial service for a 32-year-old gay man I did not know named Wes Chapman. He was in the Cincinnati Boychoir as a kid. He attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts. He attended UC's College-Conservatory of Music. He spent some time in the Navy. He spent his days working as a personal trainer. And on December 30, he jumped off a bridge (I'm told) because of his discomfort with his sexuality.
The service, held at the clubhouse of a golf course neighborhood where I assume his parents live, started 15 minutes late. At the time the blessing was supposed to begin, the room was already full and still a line of 50 people snaked out the door slowly making its way through a hallway with photo displays from a life cut short.
All those people whose lives he touched, and yet he still felt alone? I didn't see any LGBT contingent (though how can you really tell?) aside from his childhood best friend, a lovely woman who had reached out to the men's chorus asking if we would be able to honor his memory with a song with only a few days notice. She said they had both struggled with homophobia as children but grew through their experiences together.
Wes and I also had 8 Facebook friends in common and I feel like I have to talk to each one of them to find out if they knew anything about him. These are people who are out in the community... so I know that Wes must have had some opportunities for networking. I Facebook-stalked each of our mutual friends and none of them had posted anything about it. Did they even know who he was? Did they even know what had happened? I know we struggle to find meaning when there is a death or an inexplicable tragedy. This is one of the main reasons my chorus exists... as a safe haven for gay men to be who they are. We would have been a perfect supportive network for him. Why didn't we find each other?