This week we have something a bit different to share with you instead of our usual editorial. We felt it was an appropriate follow up to Phil Varley's excellent 'Point & Click' Relationships editorial series. (If you havent read them all, be sure to visit the Editorial Archives where you will find all the editorials written for The Haven.) This is a piece written by Jeff Helfenstein, who felt all the effects and emotions of losing a fellow chat friend to suicide. We thank you Jeff for allowing us to share with our readers.
Shan

EMPTY DREAMS

I recently received some sad news about Austin, a friend I had met in a chat room called Chicago Chat. Austin decided about three months ago to end his life. This of course was shocking news to me when I was told of his tragic death but what hurt more than anything was what he did emotionally to those he left behind. I don't know what Austin was feeling in those final days leading up to this extreme act of desperation. I can only imagine the weight of the world on his shoulders and feeling a pain inside that would not let go. But what's more tragic is the fact that he gave up, he gave into the temptation and decided that whatever fate was waiting for him was better than what he had here on earth. And, depending on your religious convictions there is a faith that teaches us when our time on earth is over our spirit will be taken to a better place. A paradise so beautiful that only your imagination limits what it will be like. However, there are other religious beliefs that teach us to reject suicide for it denies us any rightful place in paradise.

Austin was the first person I knew on line to have died since I began chatting. I knew him to be a happy soul full of life always making jokes. We use to have delightful discussions back and forth and I remember him asking me how the hunting was in Texas. He lived in Pennsylvania and told me he wanted to come to Texas to hunt sometime and looked forward to meeting me. I remember he met a woman on line that he fell in love with. There were even plans for a cyber wedding which everyone in the room use to discuss and joke about in great detail. Those were the happy times. The times memories are made of, filled with happiness and a zest for life. I stopped chatting in that room shortly thereafter because it was usually quite slow. However, I would go back on occasion to visit. I had heard that Austin had knee surgery and that he was having a difficult time with rehabilitation. I also knew that his relationship with that special lady in his life had fallen apart.

Then suddenly one evening in July without warning the news came. Austin had done the unthinkable. We can try to figure out why he took his life but in the end, no one will ever really know. And that's the sad part I guess, not having had the opportunity to help him. But my attention is focused on his family. Especially his mother the woman who carried him inside her for nine months. The woman who gave birth to him, who nurtured him, who made him laugh as a child, and wiped away his tears when he cried. I can only think of the piercing pain and agony she felt the moment she heard the terrible news and the million thoughts that must have passed through her mind knowing that she had lost the most precious gift in her life, her son. The despair she must have felt leading up to the funeral. The guilt she must have felt for not being able to help her son cope with life's difficulties.

I visited the Chicago Chat room the other day and could feel how cold and empty the room was as it usually is these days. I reminisced of how it was when the old gang was there and how we had so much fun together. It was an emotional moment to say the least. As I looked around the room, I could hear remnants of laughter, the funny anecdotes, the many discussions that we use to have. My heart cried and the tears started to flow. I had to come here to face the demons that took my friend's soul. As I headed for the door I took one last look back and heard distant voices in my head of all my special friends who use to play here. I knew this was not the way I wanted to remember Austin. I didn't want to remember the way he died, but rather, how he lived!

I will always remember my friend Austin as a 5 year old little boy who was full of life, and happiness. And, a proud mother who saw in him her own dreams for his future every time she buttoned his coat and sent him off to school, or made him his favorite meal, and of course, read to him his favorite bed time story. I will remember Austin as a child lying in his bed listening intently to his mother read to him the story of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. His mother sitting in the rocking chair next to Austin's bed reading to him, relishing the moment, that quiet quality time a child and a parent have at the end of the day. As she looks over and notices that he has slipped off into a soft sleep, she can only imagine how he must be dreaming of his own adventures with Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. She finishes reading the story with this closing narrative, "But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place at the top of the forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing." She closes the book and goes to the bed to tuck him in gives him a goodnight kiss on the cheek and walks to the door where she stops to look back one more time. Smiling, she turns off the light and slowly closes the door. Goodbye my friend!

By Jeff Helfenstein
Dedicated to the People of Chicago Chat.

Copyright July,2001

Email: Jeff Helfenstein