“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.”

But do you ever really know someone? A very macabre topic today as I talk about the death of one of R’s co-workers. Seemingly a man that had it all together; a hard worker, nice guy, well liked, family man, had been at the company for many years, and then…

Last night I get a call from R who tells me they had just learned that this man had shot himself in the head and had died. Probably the most horrific thing about this is that he did it in front of his two children (R believes they are both in their teens). I can’t begin to imagine the horror of witnessing such an act and while my heart, and the hearts of all who knew the family, goes out to them; I can hardly think that any consolation is even the slightest bit comforting.

As near as people can figure he was under financial and marital strain but, of course, no one expected or saw any signs of this coming. I guess when something like this happens it’s never really expected, huh? I mean if it were then there would be a chance that the person could get help and maybe the end result would be a happier ending with the person surviving. It’s a very sad thing indeed but I also feel some anger here.

Not only did this man leave his children with a memory that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, he also left them with no means of financial help. He had paid into his life insurance and pension for all those years and now, his children are left without anything because of the suicide. I realize that this man must have been in immense pain to do what he did, but it was a selfish act indeed. It makes me think of others who have taken their own lives and/or the lives of others, and what it boils down to is selfishness. Sorry if I sound crass here but what right do these people have to destroy the lives of those they leave behind. I mean, it’s bad enough that they have taken their light, or someone else’s light from the world but it’s just down right selfish that they have also drawn the light from the people left behind who loved them.

I’ve suffered loss in my life, both of my parents passed on before I was an adult. Theirs’ was a natural death and that hurt plenty, I can assure you. But to witness the taking of a life of someone as close and dear to you as a parent…leaves me in the dark. It’s impossible to make any sense out of a senseless act and yet we try. The best I can come up with is selfishness. The person, this man, didn’t want to deal with his difficult life anymore so he opted out leaving his children to bear the burden alone and then adding to their pain on top of it. I’m sad. I’m angry. I’m sorry for the topic of this post but I needed to vent. Send thoughts, prayers, healing energy to the family, sure. What else is there to do?

Crashed and Maimed

My hard drive on my spank’n new computer is a goner! All my work for the last, almost year, is gone. Yes, this sucks and yes I partially blame myself. Here’s the long and short of it.

I got my new laptop in March, before that I was using R’s computer since about last August because my old (ancient) computer was no longer functioning properly. So, I had all my writing and other info that I accumulated on R’s system from August to March. When I got the new laptop I transferred all the stuff on R’s system onto the laptop. R then deleted it off his hard drive.

So there I was, a happy camper, tooling away with my new computer. About two days before the “incident” I thought to myself, “Man, I haven’t done any backups on the this computer yet. I need to get some CDs and get that done.” Of course, the inevitable proceeded.

The other day R was moving my chair out of the way and it bumped into my desk, just hard enough to rattle things around. It knocked a candle weighing, oh…4 or 5 pounds off of a shelf. The candle, like a straight shooter, falling about three feet landed directly on my open laptop, directly over the spot where the hard drive is contained. The hard drive began making this horrible clicking sound, I knew I was in trouble, within seconds it went to the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” and then….we had to call it.

The horrific feeling that entails when you see “Operating system not found” and then check the BIOS, only to find “HDD” – “NONE” is just, well, heart wrenching to say the least. I knew it was done for, all my work gone in the flick of a candle. Total Suckage!!!

I checked on some data recovery options but it’s really quite pricey. The cost ranges from 700.00 to 4,000.00 depending on the damage. All in all, a price we can’t afford right now. So, we’re packing the drive up and storing it with the hope that we may be able to afford the cost of recovery at some future point. Until then, I’ll be using R’s system again and waiting until we can replace my laptop hard drive.

All that work, gone…just like that. It’s sickening really and yes…believe me I’m kicking myself for not backing the shit up. I know better…so yes, I blame my procrastinating self, but it doesn’t make it suck any less. Three books in progress, many, many new poems, magazine articles, articles for Real Services, just to name a small bit of what’s gone.

The lesson….DO NOT DELAY THOSE BACKUPS PEOPLE! It’s devastating; I cried (literally) for an hour. It’s grief, real grief because a loss is a loss when your heart is involved. I fade off now, gently into mourning.