broken flower

Short time ago a girl I know has tried to commit suicide. We're not close and aren't in direct contact but this has shocked me. I have no idea why she did that, and I hope it was a cry for attention rather than a desperate wish for death.

Death is a thing that makes most people finally serious. It has something final, when your life is over, it's over. It's one of the things which cannot be changed, reversed or graduated. Dying, in most cases, is nothing pleasant at all, it's painful and people dread it because they don't know where they are going to. Most people fear it, even those who have nothing else to fear. To protect life and avoid death as long as possible, infinitively measures are taken, from airbags over ambulances and firefighters to food-control. Life is valued as high as nothing else, it's priceless, and everything is done when one needs to save a life.

Only very old people, who have lived a long life, or people, who are in extreme pain, wish for death to redeem them of their agony. What reason can a teenage girl have to want to end her life before it really has begun? Life is wonderful and bright as a flower, but also as fragile. Young people are like buds, not yet fully developed, already beautiful and valuable but in a need to be extra protected so that they can fully blossom in their life, with an unspoiled beauty, without bad scars. Wounds received as a bud damage the beauty of a flower the most. A bud broken before it has opened and blossomed is the most sad thing, a life ended at it's start. Being ripped out of the middle of life, in full blossom is equally cruel. When an old person dies it's sad, but at least they've had had their life. Faded flowers have a sad appearance too, but that's the natural way.

This is just a flower. It would have faded in a few days anyway. A person will die in a few years time anyway.

But when I see this picture I cannot think of anything but the cruelty of death at a time when it oughn't be.

This would be my greatest fear if I hadn't a hope beyond it. Have you ever thought about sudden death? And what then? Someday it'll be too late.