Jake stared at the phone in his hand. What the fu#@k just happened? He tried to catch his breath.
“Jake, come help me with these sheets!” Anita called from the laundry room.
Jake’s hands began shaking, his phone dropped to the kitchen table.
“Did you hear me?” Anita walked into the kitchen carrying a load of laundry.
“Dear God, what happened?” She dropped the clothes on the floor and ran over to her seventeen-year-old son hunched over the kitchen table. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Sam killed himself…he fu#@cking killed himself....”
“Your friend, Sam?” Anita put her hands on Jake’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, but he killed himself with a goddamn gun …he texted me earlier….” Jake’s eyes filled up…..”I should have helped him…”
“What do you mean?” Anita asked.
“I didn’t answer his text.... didn’t know what to say…”
“Oh Honey, no one does,” Anita said. “But I could have helped if I had known.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Jake interrupted. “He wouldn’t have wanted that. Anyway, I gotta go to his house now. His mom texted, so a bunch of us are going over to help.”
After Jake left, Anita called a friend, another mom who knew Sam’s family.
“Tragic,” her friend said. “Apparently, Sam had been getting more edgy and angry as this pandemic went on. His parents thought he was just missing football and his friends. He hated doing school on Zoom, but then he started spending time in his room…too much time…even stopped talking to friends.”
“Jake’s been like this too….” Anita hesitated. “How do I know this won’t happen to him?”
“Because you can talk to Jake,” Her friend said. “Sam didn’t think he could talk to his parents.”
A few hours later Jake returned home, still shaken. “His dad hadn’t locked up the gun.”
Anita got up from the table and gave Jake a hug like she never had before.
“They were glad to see us,” Jake said. “But I should have told you.”
“Honey, you were in a bind trying to stay loyal to Sam, but we could have made a plan together to get help for both Sam and his family….”
“He didn’t talk to his parents,” Jake interrupted.
“He didn’t have to,” Anita said. “That’s what these suicide prevention lines are for. He could have talked to someone confidentially, for free. I could have talked to his mom.”
“I never took these suicide lines seriously before,” Jake said. “But Sam’s mom told us he’d been depressed. They just thought he was angry.”
“It’s not their fault,” Anita said. “Most parents don’t know the signs for depression or suicide risk. We need to do a better job educating families about mental health issues, and what to do in emergencies…for starters, magnets with crisis line phone numbers for every refrigerator.”
“Yeah, I could have used that,” Jake said.
Resources:
*National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 24 hours, 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
*Crisis Support Services (CSS) of Alameda County, 24 hour Crisis Line: 1-800-309-2131
*Local Text Line for Alameda County Youth, Crisis Support Services of Alameda County, Text SAFE to 20121
*Suicidepreventionlifeline.org
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