Talking about suicide leads us into philosophical ideas with a long history. How does it help anyone to revisit these ideas time after time when most suicides occur dispite our words and philosophies? We can only guess at answers in most cases. even suicide notes do not always explain what they seek to explain.

We say to ourselves and out loud to others, "If he could have waited another month," and " She could have staid with her relatives," and " It serves no purpose to end you own life over something link this." I could go on and on as the reader knows too well. In the mind of the suicide victim time for waitiing ran out, no one else would or could help, there is purpose when it ends pain, shame, and guilt.

Perhaps some of use believe that we are better or stronger, but how do we know what we would do in the same or similar situation. In poetry we find Richard Cory's station in life cannot save him from suicide; we find Eliza Wharton's situation immortalized in The Coquetter. Throughout this story suicide seemed to demand Wharton's life. These literary stories stand against the stories we suggest when someone near us commits suicide. They bring light to a dark subject.