I’ve lived in rural eastern Oregon for 37 years, and
in that time have known several suicides (HCN,
3/31/08). Some are variations on the scripts that Ring
discusses.
But there is another type of suicide that is
not unusual in the rural independent West – the elderly or terminal
individual who clings to control over his or her own life until it
is too burdensome or too burdensome on close ones. I was talking
with friends about “My Crazy Brother”and we immediately came up
with a handful of old-timers here – ranchers, foresters, teachers,
barbers – who measured the quality of their lives and the impact
their diminishing health was having on their spouse or partner, and
chose to end things while they still had control. Although those
left behind still feel loss and sadness, the quality of remembrance
seems different in kind than that in the cases described by Ray
Ring.
Although I hate to end the discussion of such
serious matters on a statistical note, it just could be that this
phenomenon is more prevalent in the West, and especially the rural
West, than in other parts of the country, and therefore skews
suicide statistics.
Rich Wandschneider Joseph,
Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline No country for old men.
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