Extraordinary Moments

Content Notice: This article contains candid discussion of suicide and depression. It reflects on real experiences in rural and ranching communities, including the loss of loved ones to suicide. If this topic is difficult for you, please take care in reading and know that help is available. You’re not alone. Resources are provided at the end of the article.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Most of us have heard that so often it’s lost its meaning. Well, it had for me until the day I saw a single picture for the first time. Oh, I’d seen that picture a thousand times, but that day was the first time I truly saw it for what it is.

It’s a pretty standard “cowboys doing cowboy stuff” picture, mashed in a collage frame with some other “cowboys doing cowboy stuff” pictures. I barely remember the day, let alone the picture being taken, but it’s such a routine event that I pretty well know how it came about. One of our neighbors rode into the sea of bawling black pairs, spotted an unbranded calf, swung his rope a couple of times and picked up a hind foot or two. After he stacked on a dally, he pointed his horse for “the fire.” In our case, “the fire” is a gas-powered generator and three electric irons. Upon arrival, my wrestling partner (and best man at my wedding) grabbed the rope, I grabbed the tail, a little flick of the wrists, and the calf was ready to be processed. A couple of vaccinations and then grandpa arrived with the iron. The scene was set: a couple of kids in their hats and chinks, an old man with a branding iron, and smoke curling up off late spring hair. Some amateur photographer with a little bit of skill and a whole lot of camera, (probably my aunt) captured the moment.

Every western ranch house has this same picture, in various forms, hanging on the wall. The land may be a touch different; our background is either irrigated hay meadow or cold desert. The cattle may be a touch different; maybe everybody hasn’t jumped on the black hide bandwagon. The people, though, are pretty much the same in every version of this picture. Maybe the hats have a different crease, the pants are tucked, or the chinks have more fringe. But the people, at their core, are the exact same. Hard-working, fun-loving people, passionate about their animals, their skills, and their land.

I think that is why I finally truly saw this picture for the first time. Three men. One young and single. One well beyond his glory days, with three adult kids and a matching wife count. Then me. In that picture I was young, married with two kids, and relatively carefree. Flash forward 21 years and I’m still married to the same amazing woman, still have two incredible kids that are turning out to be even more incredible adults, and I’m the only person from that picture that hasn’t held a pistol to my head and pulled the trigger.

Hundreds of thousands of these pictures are hanging in thousands of homes. The people are the same at the core. So is this photo the exception? Is this a “one in a million” photo where time and circumstance aligned in a tragic twist of the odds? Or is this photo the rule?  

Maybe the other faces in the other pictures don’t result in suicides, but the people behind the faces suffer, nonetheless. Too often we silo suicide as a devastating outcome of depression. Sometimes acute depression, triggered by an event.  Sometimes chronic depression resulting from physical or mental trauma, or even something we’re “just born with.” That’s too easy. That’s the story that we, the survivors of other people’s suicides, tell ourselves to bring context and rationality to the victim’s decision.  

There is no doubt that my grandpa and my best friend experienced depression in some form. One being the result of alcohol and impulsive decision making. The other, a result of time, a life lived hard, and a reckoning that life could only become more and more difficult to enjoy with each passing day.  

But to say that depression caused their suicides is to say that an iceberg sunk the Titanic or that drought is the result of a lack of rain. It’s just the grand finale. The last scene in a script full of circumstances, decisions, and events that, when viewed in reverse, obviously lead to a certain and predictable outcome. Unfortunately, we can’t live our lives knowing the outcome. If we knew what the final scene would look like, we’d know how to see an extraordinary moment while we were in it, rather than recognizing it twenty-one years later. And then, only in a picture.

A one in a million photo. Three men in that photo. One in three suicides involve alcohol. It’s not hard to understand why. All those great reasons to use alcohol, all the reasons cowboys and alcohol are damn near synonymous. Some shy kid that’s been with cows more than he’s been with girls comes to town and figures out it’s a whole lot easier to talk to the ladies if he’s had a beer or two. Figures out that way better stories come as a result of a few shots of Crown. Figures out that the pain of losing his best horse, best dog, or best friend is tempered just a bit with a pull off the Pendleton. Figures out that the empty feeling he has following a good binger is cured with a little hair of the dog. Figures out that that nagging question about pain and the other side is a lot easier acted out if he’s lubricated himself with a lack of inhibition, shitty decision making, and a magnified ability to diminish his own self-worth.

Hundreds of thousands of these pictures, hanging in thousands of homes. Twenty-five percent of all suicides are carried out by elderly people. People that don’t want to leave their families with massive medical bills. People that don’t want to die slow and painful deaths. People that don’t want their children and grandchildren to watch them die a slow and painful death. People that want to die with their dignity mostly intact. To do death the way they did life, on their terms. To have for themselves the same mercy they’ve bestowed on countless suffering cows, calves, horses, and dogs.

I believe any judgement of suicide is only proof of how little we, the living, understand our fallen loved one’s rationalizations, pains, fears, scars, and beyond. We act as if we can prevent suicide by knowing “the signs.” The signs of depression should not be confused with the signs of suicidal thoughts. The signs of depression are wide-ranging and relatively easy to read, but there is only one sign of impending suicide: a state of happiness and contentment. Easy enough to read, unless it’s a sign of easing depression. 

It’s funny how well I was able to hear suicide prevention advice after the fact. It’s probably just as well. I’m not sure how much of it I could have used anyway. The best advice I have ever heard came from my uncle when my best friend died. He explained how suicide invades our lives in cycles, where the trauma and heartbreak of one suicide sets the stage for the next. And the next. And the next. Sometimes years apart, sometimes decades, but always connected. And that it is up to us, the living, to take the bull by the horns and break that cycle.

Suicide is preventable. Not by recognizing someone is on the brink. If you recognize it is coming, it’s most likely already too late. Even the most well educated and experienced mental health professional will have a terrible record of “talking people off the ledge.” Prevention starts where suicide leaves off. Prevention starts with caring for the survivors. Prevention starts with intentional relationships, bonded communities, and access to excellent healthcare. It starts with destigmatizing mental health care and being able to ask for help. It starts by realizing that you are always, every second of every day, living in an extraordinary moment.

If you or someone you care about is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, please know you’re not alone and help is available. Call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 help is available 24/7. You can also reach out to a trusted friend, family member, pastor, or healthcare provider.

Asking for help is a sign of strength not weakness. For those in agriculture, the AgriStress Helpline is a free, confidential resource available in many states at 833-897-2474. Your life matters. There is a way through.