Unexpected

Last year, my cousin committed suicide. Honestly, I wasn't very close to him, but we had spent a lot of time together when we were younger, so I still felt close to him. The sorrow I felt was mostly for his family and the pain that they had gone through, as I'm sure they continue to go through. Once the initial shock wore off, I wasn't expecting to continue to dwell on what had happened. Suicide affects everyone, but I had never known anyone personally to have gone through that. I realized pretty quickly that it had affected me more than I could see myself. Even though I am desensitized to most violence in movies and television, I have a very hard time handling suicide in the media. Especially when it comes to the way that he died. Even more unexpected for me was that I have trouble watching zombie shows for the same reason. With the rising popularity of the zombie trend, I'm encountering this more and more. I didn't type this up for sympathy... I just wanted to get it out of my mind. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I felt like this would be a good outlet. His family is coping with the loss, but I know they will never be the same with such a violent and sudden ending to his life. This has made me more painfully aware of the responsibility we have as citizens to pay attention to our surroundings and the people who share in our lives. Blaming is the wrong thing to do in this situation; we need to press forward with a renewed hope of helping those around us to be happy.