St. Norbert Times

Issue date: 3/8/10 Section: Features

Media Credit: Alex DuBois

When I was in college, the rumor was that if your roommate committed suicide you got your tuition and room for free. Of course sitting around the lunch table we would joke around about those who might commit suicide or who we might want to do it- but it was just joking. We were a bunch of dumb young guys who never knew anyone who'd committed suicide.

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1984, I was visiting my aunt and her family because my immediate family was too far away to visit (we were poor back then). My aunt answered the phone and said "Henderson's" as was the custom and looked at me and said, "There's someone named Maria on the phone for you." Maria was one of my closest friends from home and there was no reason she should be calling, much less know where I was. Back in those days, we wrote letters and I hadn't written for a while and to call "long distance" was quite expensive at that time so I immediately knew something was up. Did she want to date me? Did something happen to her mom?

I said, "Hello" and she immediately responded, "Mark's dead." She started crying and said he'd killed himself by parking his car in the garage and closing the door. I tried talking but didn't really know what to say. Mark was a good friend of ours, and he'd been having problems with his parents, problems with school and problems with his girlfriend. After some time I hung up, sat down and was in shock for days. The following Monday I was back at school, sitting at the lunch table and told the guys what happened. We didn't talk about free tuition and rooms any more.

Mark was a tall, handsome, funny guy who was so good-looking that we used to joke about 30 year-olds picking him up (which had actually happened). This was before "cougars" were popular. He drank too much and smoked too much and apparently decided that on Thanksgiving night, 1984, his problems were never going to get better - so he ended it.

When people ask me why I'm a psychologist I typically say it's because the girls in psychology class were a lot better looking than the guys in the physics class. The truth is that 25 or 26 years later I can still remember that phone call and want to do everything I can to make sure one of you doesn't get that phone call.

Sometimes I hear people at the Caf, or Phil's talking about "killing themselves" if something doesn't work out (a paper, a date, a project, etc.). But if they'd ever gotten that call, they probably would use a different phrase or not be so quick to think of ending their life (even jokingly) over temporary problems.

Continued...

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