Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I might have been able to ignore it if I hadn’t read that the son of a disgraced Fox news host killed himself yesterday by overdose. Nineteen year old Eric Chase Bolling Jr. was distressed by his father’s troubles. Eric Bolling was fired for sending lewd photos to women, with a ton of fanfare on social media.

Bolling Sr. may be a cunt but no one deserves this. And no one should be in such pain without a person to talk to or a voice reminding him that he is needed in this world, no matter how hard that is to recognize in moments of despair.

I needed Eric Jr. and I needed Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, and Blake Heron, who died from an overdose three days after leaving rehab. Every day I read about someone’s son or daughter or parent leaving by suicide, and my heart breaks each time. The suffering they leave behind is unimaginable. If only they could all come running back!

Suicide can be prevented. Not always but in many cases where a hand to hold or a compassionate word might have made the difference.

We can all try to be a ray of light in someone’s darkness. What better enterprise is there, right?

We can learn the warning signs of a psyche in distress.

I admit that I struggle with To be or not to be, every single day. What keeps me here is the awareness of shattering other lives in my haste to depart. What a mess it makes! No one recovers. Obviously.

If you’re suffering, I urge you to stick around. Things will change!  Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)  Or click here for helpful advice.

***If you are in crisis but would be more comfortable texting, 24/7 support is available by texting 741741.

If there is anyone you are concerned about, take a minute to check in with them. It could change their life. xo

Today we were waiting in line at our neighborhood Pollo Loco and the line wasn’t moving. I saw that the guy giving his order at the cash register was gesticulating impatiently.

Something was up. The guy was raising his voice but we couldn’t make out his words. I turned to my husband and said, “I hope we don’t get shot here, but I can actually think of worse places.”

I was thinking of CVS, where I happened to be during a very mild earthquake. I remember how glad I was not to spend my last moments in a CVS, crushed by products.

The guy at the front finally paid the cashier. We heard him explain that his jaw waas wired shut and he wanted to have his chicken shredded.

He moved aside to the salsa bar, where an older guy said something. The young guy, who was very tall and thin, said “I was shot in the face.”

Trying to compute this information, I heard the older say “blah blah blah small caliber?”

Men! If they’re not getting shot in the face, they want to talk about guns!

I could hear the older guy making suggestions, like getting “Ensure” for the protein and drinking soup. He seemed genuinely concerned. Now I had to walk past them and at that moment, the young guy pulled out his phone to show a picture of his x-ray – a skull with something passing right through the mouth.

I blurted out, “I’m so sorry!” and the guy turned to me. Now I could see how young he was, probably around 20. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

He blushed and smiled. I saw a flash of smashed up teeth and metal. The older guy said, “Me too.”

We found a table and I felt shaken by the encounter. Witnessing simple human kindness is  always so moving to me. It is nearly unbearable, in fact. I thought of how painful life is for so many people, all the suffering in the world and how hard it is to let yourself care or to stop from caring too much. I wished I could give the face-guy a blender. I wished people could stop killing Syrian children. I wished the loved ones I have lost would come back.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the counter. The face-guy was angry and wanted a refund. I guess they hadn’t shredded his chicken. He stormed out empty handed.

I went to get some salsa and saw the Korean manager yelling at the Mexican cashier. He was gong on about the refund, ranting about how it would throw everything off. He could not have cared less about a guy getting shot in the face.

I’m not sure what my point is here. But I’ll say this: If a guy gets shot in the face, he deserves some goddamn shredded chicken.

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Last night, I stayed up until dawn after taking in too much suffering. I am trying to learn tonglen, a method of breathing in suffering and breathing out compassion, but I forgot. I forgot, and found myself dwelling on my own misery.

Earlier in the day, I wrote a letter to someone whose partner killed himself. Later in the day, I answered an email from a man whose depressed wife has taken to her bed, leaving him with two jobs and the care of their children. Then I read about the mother who killed her 14 year old autistic son, incurring the understandable wrath of the disability community and beyond.

So many problems and so many tragic circumstances with no easy solutions. It’s overwhelming. You have to do something, though, right?

I have a bunch of Facebook “friends” who I don’t know in real life. I acquire them for the usual reasons. One of them, Jon, had an accident a few weeks ago that left him paralyzed in a wheelchair and unable to keep his apartment. His story triggered memories of Max’s despair over his injuries.

I was determined to help Jon. I noticed that he had more than 1,000 Facebook friends. He is a political activist and provokes lively discussion on his Facebook page. So I posted my idea on his page: I exhorted Jon’s friends to each make a $5 donation to his Paypal account. What a great idea, I thought proudly! I felt deeply satisfied by my plan to rescue this person in need.

Jon received four donations, including mine.

He was okay with it, but I was horrified. I couldn’t get over it. Five dollars?? Wouldn’t anybody give five dollars to a human being in such difficult circumstances? What the fuck is wrong with people?

I’m upset by indifference, even though I’m guilty of it all the time. I would like to see more compassion. Coincidentally, I just came across this study in how compassion and kindness can be taught and developed, literally changing the brain in the process.

More kindness would be great. The messages I’ve received from strangers who read my blog have often brought me to tears, just because kindness seems like such a meaningful gift. When we breathe in each other’s suffering and breathe out compassion, we are all that much closer to healing the unbearable pain of being human.

*photo (c) Nandini Valli Muthiah