Well, this is the first time I find myself writing about something like this. An old friend of mine committed suicide yesterday and I'm still trying to work out how I feel. He was an old friend (12 years or so) and a good friend, but not necessarily a close friend. He wasn't the sort of person that's easy to get close to and we've been separated by the Atlantic Ocean for a number of years. Nonetheless I'm sorry to see him go and I get a lump in my throat when I think about him.

I wonder what it is that makes people take their own lives. He'd been struggling to pay his mortgage through the recession and was working long hours at a low paid job in order to make ends meet. But he was a dedicated family man. I wonder what it was that led him to the conclusion that his family would be better off without him. I guess we never know how we're going to react until we're put in that kind of position ourselves.

RIP.