Of springers and jumpers
In the boats, jaunty, hopeful optimism. On the bridge, a soft-spoken sign.
It’s a juxtaposition that will set you back a step, if you think about it. Below the Sellwood Bridge in Portland, stretching up the Willamette River on a blue sky morning, nearly a dozen anglers are fishing for Chinook salmon returned from the Pacific. “Springers,” is what the anglers call them.
But up on the bridge itself, the main concern is jumpers. The sign says there is hope, and says they are there to listen. The phone number is a 24/7 crisis line operated by the county mental health department.
Because the return of springers migrating up the river isn’t the only thing Spring is known for. It’s also when suicides rise. When I was a newspaper reporter I wrote about that a couple times. One expert said it might be because we expect the return of Spring, with its light, warmth and vibrant growth, to bring about a seasonal revival in ourselves, as well. But some people fighting despair can’t find or feel the rebirth they were hoping for, and so sink into the final darkness. That was the expert’s theory, anyway.
You can sink into darkness pretty fast. Jump and hit the water.
I don’t understand suicide, myself. Such an awful legacy to leave behind. I’ve never considered it and wouldn’t, ever. I enjoy life all to hell, and find moments of joy and wonder damn near every day.
But from my early reporting days, covering the cops beat and writing about too many deaths, I know some people see it as a way out, a relief. Or they want to punish themselves, or punish someone else. People can sink. That’s one of the reasons I’ve never had a gun in my homes. I read too many police reports about kids or spouses, in those lost, empty moments, picking up the pistol and hitting the water.
We nearly had one of those grievous homicide-suicide episodes in our family. Our mom’s father, a damaged and depressed World War I veteran, pointed a gun at Mom and her mother, but thankfully turned away and spared everyone. Mom thought he intended to kill them and then himself. I’ve written about that in a post titled She Wanted Us to Know About It.
I still remember the first suicide I wrote about as a journalist, in the early 1980s. It stuck with me, mainly because the sorrow of it baffled me then and now.
It was at my first job in newspapers, at the beloved Springfield News, now defunct, as they say. At the time we were a scrappy tri-weekly paper and thought we were going to go daily any time now, and then really take it to the mighty Eugene Register-Guard next door.
I covered cops and courts, as beginners did at the time, and spent my weekday mornings reading reports and dispatch logs at city police, county sheriff and state police offices, and the fire and ambulance dispatch office as well.
The suicide was in a police report.
It was a young woman in her late 20s or early 30s, as I remember. She was attractive, educated, healthy and, judging from the one photo I saw of her, demure. Soft spoken and thoughtful, people said. Maybe too thoughtful.
That Spring, she sent a letter to the Springfield Police Department saying, in effect, “I’ve committed suicide. Come and remove me, please.”
Then she lay down in bed, neatly pulled the covers to her chin, and pressed a pistol to the side of her head. And that was it.
I guess she didn’t think there was any hope, and of course she never got to see signs on the bridge like they put up now, more than 40 years later.
I wanted to know more about the signs — whose idea was it to put them up, do they do any good, will they leave them up all year, what’s been the public reaction, if any. Have they seen an uptick in calls to the 24/7 crisis line?
I didn’t call the crisis number because that seemed like a terrible idea, potentially tying up the line when someone was seeking help. I tried calling the mental health department’s main number six times, but I kept getting a busy signal. That was OK. I hope they were helping somebody.
In the Portland area, the 24/7 crisis number is 503-988-4888.
Oh yeah. Good post. No matter how burdened I am from politics or war it’s my neighbors and walks. No matter what the weather is we meet neighbors. Or the clerks at bi mart or winco who no me so well. My convience store diary is set aside but a run for beer in sadness brought the clerk out of the store to wish the best as the health of our old doggie has declined.
There are good folks nearby. That are a treasure to me.
My niece woke up one morning & went to work without disturbing her sleeping wife. As the morning passed into afternoon she checked on Toni to find she had left the earth with a magic marker display of DO NOT RESUSCITATE written on her chest.
But the worst wasn’t over. Lesbians in northern Louisiana got the full attention of the small town police department. Time to lock my niece in the back of a patrol car & hold her with a Bible Belt while they called in the murder investigation & while they searched the home, removed the body & transported it to Arkansas. Weeks later ashes were released.
I was her phone call. I couldn’t understand a single word. I live in Oregon, WTF could I do?
Later I watched the suicide video/note & screamed at a dead woman.
Time passed & we moved, not on, but forward.
Then a year & a half later my husband’s best friend left a note: DEAD BODY INSIDE.
If you’ve ever once thought you’d make a clean exit, pick up the pieces left after people you love have killed your heart.