Suicide Notes

Ryder had been considering suicide for years, and now with Rachel and the kids gone, there really was no reason left to live. He resented Rachel, but he he didn't want to hurt the kids. Matt would take it the worst. A senior in high school, he was devastated by the divorce. Ryder felt evil, doing this to his children. He remembered when his father did it to him. Shot himself. But the worst part was dad didn't leave a note. Ryder would not do that to his family. He would leave a special note for each kid. He stopped going to work and started working on the suicide notes full-time. He wanted the words to be perfect, soothing, but also the paper, just the right color for each kid, and so by the end of the week there was crumpled paper all over the apartment. "Dear Matt: I'm sorry I'll be missing your soccer games..."  "Dear Isabelle: I guess I won't be around to walk you down the aisle..."  "Dear Tad: I always swore I would never do to my children what my father did to me..."  "Dear Rachel: One more reason to hate me I suppose and feel like you were right all along..."

He thought a gun was too messy. He didn't want anyone cleaning up after him. Besides, he didn't have one. He would have to work on some painless alcohol and pill recipe that didn't include vomiting. This seemed a tall order in his Internet searches. The key was guaranteed, instantaneous death. None of this hanging around for two weeks with liver and kidney failure from Tylenol poisoning. None of this coma and brain damage and paralysis. No, his intention was to make his life better, not worse.

Weeks went by. Then months. He was fired. He never left the house or showered. He stopped sleeping. He just studied the internet suicide methods and wrote his suicide notes. The writing reminded him of his unfinished novel which he dug out and started reading, making notations here and there. The suicide notes were getting longer and longer, more and more involved. Even if he could finally settle on a suicide method, he could not figure out the right words to say good-bye to his children. Apparently there were no such words. It's one thing to be terminally ill and say good-bye against your will. But to deliberately leave? Forever? To perpetuate his horrific family legacy? With suicide, the people you hurt the most are the ones who love you the most. There was no way around it.  Finally, he decided he just couldn't do it to them. He was a shmuck, a loser, a failure but he had to keep living one day after the other for the sake of his kids. He collected all the crumpled paper and started skimming through it. It turned out to be the other half of his unfinished novel.