I'd driven down into Valley View to get a sub from an Italian Sub joint there. The meat is normal but their bread/rolls are excellent. I had called it in and stopped to pick it up. I normally drive over to a parking lot beneath the huge I-480 bridge where I can park in the shade if needed. Today as I approached on West Canal heading south I saw police lights right by the parking lot I planned on having my mid-day repast. As I got closer I noticed there were 2 Valley View Police cruisers, another car with red flashing lights in its grill and on the door it indicated it was the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner and another cruiser driven by one of the rangers from the Cuyahoga National Park. I looked to my right about 20-30 yards into the fieled and there was also a white van. Just as I looked I saw two people lifting a white sheet over something that was below the level of the weeds and wildflowers and grasses growing there. This didn't look good. The bridge, the cops, the medical examner, them covering something up with a white sheet, not good at all... suicide.
Someone had jumped from the bridge was the only thing I could think. A few years after purchasing what is now the Mind Fry complex I saw a similar scene in the house next door. White van out front. Cruisers. This time I saw the gurney with the white sheet over it. An old man had lived there so I thought he had probably died and they were taking him away. It turned out that the kid who lived there had killed himself about 5 days earlier and they just now were taking him away. Well this scene had a similar feel as that one. I perused the news today and yesterday for something about it and so far nothing, but after talking to a friend who knows someone who knows some rangers it turns out the man was driving on the bridge and just pulled over to the side of the road got out and climbed the fence and away he went. Sad.
I have to wonder what makes someone do that. A complete lack of hope that things can ever get 'good enough'. A despair and despondency that just overwhelms one. So long as one is alive there is always the chance that things will get better, good even. Death is inevitable why not wait. All I can think is that the suicidal feel this life is just so horrible anything that comes after, even if it is nothing, has to be better. I can't subscribe to that but I think I can understand the logic. I also have to wonder in a case like this what was going thorugh his mind after he lept. I'm not sure how far down it is but he had some time before the inevitable. Was he thinking "Free, I am finally free of this god forsaken life." or was he thinking "Shit what have I just done....".