PS - re guns and suicide - I remember that young man sitting at my kitchen table a week before he died, having a beer with my husband. It was late, and my husband and I were arguing about guns for the umpteenth time. Hubby had been planning to buy one for over a year, I was too afraid to allow one around my kids or in my home.

We had no good reason for owning a gun imo - we weren't hunters or farmers or cops after all. In fact, the only reason Hubby'd ever come up with for buying a gun was "for protection against people with homicidal tendencies". And here I'd always insisted that "protection against people with homicidal tendencies" was the best reason ever NOT to allow a gun in the house!

So on and on it went, me insisting over and over again that violence, injury and death were a LOT more likely to happen if there was a gun lying around, and hubby ignoring or belittling my concerns.

But the point of this story is, that young neighbour actually agreed with me that night! Yes, violence is much more likely with a gun in the house, he said. In fact, he was the only one of my husband's friends who had ever "taken my side" about guns! I was so surprised! Even thanked him, quietly, for his support before he left that night.

The day he died he'd been at my door early in the morning, looking for Hubby, who wasn't there. He sat down at the table for a couple minutes, looking like he wanted something else - maybe just to talk? But I was sick myself that day, and my baby twins had had the flu for a week -- I didn't have the time or the energy that day to even make him a coffee, told him he'd best leave if he didn't want to get the flu too.

When I found out what he'd done later that day, I was just wracked with guilt. Oh, if I'd only spent a bit of time with him, sick as a dog or not, I might have been able to help! After what he'd said about guns just a few days before, I might have been able to talk some sense into him. :-(

But eventually, I just had to let all that guilt go. That guilt wasn't helping anyone - him, his family, or myself. Unfortunately, we cannot always be our brother's keeper.   :-(

Thanks for listening,

daylia