A Suicide Note of Hope ― More Than a Memoir

In A Suicide Note of Hope, I document an adventurous and traumatic memoir characterized by empowerment, inspiration, transformation, and humor. In "Goodbye", I begin the note and describe the precipitator, a bogus charge of sexual harassment made against me that was published in the Washington Post. In "Early Years: Chaos, Trauma, and Adventure", I describe a childhood fraught with pain, beginning at age 3 when my mother "fell" down the steps, broke her neck and died. Subsequently, I had repeated rejections, being moved around so often that I lived in 10 different homes with that many sets of parental figures. A soft humor can be felt in my embrace of these younger years. In "Death Kisses and Transformations", I reflect on numerous times when I came close to death and quote William Blake, "When one kisses death, life becomes infinitely sweet." I ultimately conclude poetically, "Death is my best friend. It reminds me to enjoy life more each day." The reader can learn about a number of self-help skills from meditation and assertive behavior to cognitive skills and self-hypnosis that I have used to struggle through an adult life with a flimsy childhood foundation. My accomplishments in marathon running and triathlons and one about my evolution in religion and spirituality top off efforts to empower and transform myself in order to transcend the vestiges from childhood. The reader can learn useful skills and receive inspirational ideas for transformations.... A salient feature of this work includes the potentially lifesaving reframe of suicidal thoughts as a good thing and not a bad thing; they are signals that something in one's life does need to die. It's just not the person who needs to do so. With the death a new and