For the longest time I've only known two people who have commited suicide. As of last night that number grew to 3.

During my first quarter at college, a former pastor of mine hung himself. I loved that man, he was great. He taught my confirmation class at my church and we went on some retreats and stuff. He could always talk to you, and you could challenge him to debates and shit. Debates like "Is God real," and you'd have an intelligent discussion. He's the one who really opened me up to spirituallity and religion. It was a shocked me to learn he hung himself.

The second person I knew was a kid a year older than me. I had some friends who knew him better, I knew him when I was younger, like 2nd grade, but I never really talked him much. But it still is a shock. Just takes the wind out of you. To hear someone you know took their own life. Wow.

Well, today I got a call at work from Sepe. A kid we knew committed suicide. His girlfriend and him broke up, I guess he drank a bottle of wine and sat down on some train tracks and let the train do the work.

He was a freshman my senior year in highschool. He was in our section in band, he played football every Friday with the rest of the Trombones. He also worked at the Hudson Library with us. I helped train him there, and we worked together whenever I was back on breaks during my first couple years of school. Damn. Just a punch in the gut.

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I've thought about suicide. I have, but never seriously. I think everyone has at one point. Bad day. Bad week. Bad month. Shit happens. I get depressed, I do. Again, I think everyone does. I struggle with a my weight a lot, or work or girls and lack the thereof. Or I get to wondering if I'll ever make in the real world. Did I pick a dumb major? Should I do grad school? Could I make it in grad school? Can I handle the work load I sign myself up for?

And sometimes I start to think that the answers to those questions are 'no'. And I wonder what it would be like to just rest and not worry anymore. But ya know what? Everytime I think that thought, everytime, I think about my family. And how much I would hurt them. How sad my parents would be, my brother and sister. How that would hurt my friends. And everytime I think about that, I know I could never do it.

Ever.

But every now and then the thought creeps into my head again. After a bad day or bad week, it happens. I'm sure that happens to everyone. But nothing is worth taking your life. No girl is worth killing yourself for.

And I can't imagine how that girl feels now. Or his parents. I just can't. They must be devastated.

It's weird that he's gone. Everytime I hear that someone has died I always don't believe it. Even if its a celebrity and I read it on CNN, my first thought is that the story is wrong. They'll pull out of it. And today when I heard the voicemail Sepe left me, I thought, "No, he's wrong, he fucked up the story."

It's rough, it's hard to just think he's gone. *Poof* from here on out you can never talk to him again. Just like that.

All I can say is that my thoughts and prayers are with his family. I can't possibly imagine what they're going through.

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From what I've heard, the funeral is sometime on Friday. I'm going to try to make it up to Hudson. I do have to work on Friday, and I'm not sure how they'll like me missing another day, after I missed last weeked because of the shoulder (which still hurts like a bitch, though only when I move it a certain way, and I do my best not to move it that way). But I'm going to do my best to make it up.