Lori Day‘s post On Boys, Suicide and the Lessons of Unfilled Holes starts out: On our first date three years ago, my husband Geof told me where he went to college, what he did for a living, that he was involved in climate activism, that he was allergic to wheat, and that his younger brother had committed suicide almost 30 years ago. As we got to know each other better, suicide as a defining event in his life took greater shape through many more conversations that each chipped away small pieces of the hugeness of what could never be fully be explained. (read the entire article here)

The post got almost 50 comments. Here are two:

From Greg

I’ve only just recently discovered this website,and wasn’t prepared for the frankness and deep waters of this article. Well written, and thought provoking. Is there fulfillment for a man in the absence of monsters, war, and forging pathways to unexplored horizons?

I’m encouraged to read that you didn’t leave, that you endured. We should all be so fortunate to discover the same companionship in another.

♦◊♦

From Jennifer Whitten

This article is so useful that I will ask my partner AND my 11 year old stepson to read it. Their (adult) friend killed himself 2 1/2 years ago, and it has caused great wounds in all three of the males in my family who knew him. Meanwhile, the 11 year old is really struggling with how to express his emotions, and a fear that how he is, right now, is the way he will always be. I can show him the section about the boys’ school, and point to what you said about boys still evolving (AND men and women still evolving!) and it might help him to accept himself and his possibilities for change. It is sometimes easier for him to accept things like that from others who are not his parents. So I thank you, many times over.

–

photo by stevepj2009 / flickr