Why Him?

I was talking to Mom yesterday, and per the norm of our weekly conversations since December 30th, we eventually started talking about 3. We spoke about the abundance of mental illness on Dad’s side of the family and the misfortune that my cousins, siblings, and I have to deal with growing up in such a family. My dad is one of 11 children, and there are 25 grandchildren in my generation. Choking back tears, Mom asked, out of all of those grandchildren, “Why 3?”

Why did 3 have to bear the brunt of all the family psychopathology? Why was he the one to pay the ultimate price? Why 3 instead of any of the other cousins?

Well, of course living in the same extended family doesn’t mean that 3 had the same experiences as all of our other cousins. Like so many others who commit suicide, 3 was the victim of a particular confluence of risk factors and unfortunate events including, but not limited to, a crazy, deadbeat father, a wildly impulsive personality, and a profound intelligence that allowed him to understand just how destructive his impulsive choices were. I certainly can’t say which of these factors was the most influential, nor am I willing to speculate that the absence of any given one would have prevented 3’s death.

What I didn’t ask Mom is which cousin she would rather have suffered 3’s fate. I’m not particularly close to many of the cousins on Dad’s side of the family, but I certainly wouldn’t wish suicide on anyone, much less someone to whom I’m related. As much as I hate seeing my mom and siblings in so much pain, I can’t, even in the hypothetical, ask for someone else to take that pain from them.

I can’t imagine what Mom is going through in losing a child, so I’m not in any place to judge her if she did actually wish that one of my cousins had died instead of 3. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dad and RJ wished the same thing. I, on the other hand, don’t like to fantasize about the past. Psychologically, I can list the risk factors that probably contributed to 3’s choice, and that’s as much as I can hope for. There is no way speculation can do anything but make it worse. And honestly, thinking about the rest of my cousins who live in the shadow of mental illness doesn’t make me ask “Why not them,” it makes me wonder “Who’s next?”