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Suicide

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by YankeeFan, Feb 3, 2016.

  1. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    I wrote one about a star quarterback whose dad committed suicide. Went to their house. Asked one question and his mom started bawling. The whole thing just tore me up. I did a couple of stories about student-athlete deaths, but they weren't suicides.

    For this family, there was light on the other side of it. The kid is happily married with two kids now and at least by appearances on Facebook he has recovered quite well.
     
  2. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    One of he toughest interviews I ever did was with a mid-major basketball coach whose daughter died from anorexia nervosa. This probably isn't suicide, technically, but might be in the same classification. She was 21, a beautiful blonde, who just stopped eating. I had met her a couple of times and always said hello when I saw her at the games. I heard about her death from a source at the coach's school and went through that source to set up the interview. He got back to me and said the coach wasn't ready to talk about it, but I would get the first interview when he was ready. That happened a few months later. Very difficult, interviewing a grown man who is crying his eyes out, while I was trying to not cry my eyes out. "She didn't want to die, she just couldn't force herself to eat."
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2016
  3. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    Yankee Fan, I'm sorry to hear about that. Almost 23 years ago I had a cousin who killed himself. He just split up with his wife and was running his own business, which I guess wasn't going to well.
    I sent my aunt a card after it happened. Until then, I always thought she didn't like me much. She always seemed kind of critical of me. In retrospect, I think she probably just felt I had more potential than I was showing and wanted me to do better.
    We got along a lot better after I sent the card and became much closer. For me, I guess something good came out of it, but would still much rather have had my cousin still around.
     
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