Pink Elephants and A Little Suicide

At this point, you are probably wondering what a Pink Elephant is, and whether a little suicide is like a little pregnant or, if you already know what pink elephants are, maybe you're just wondering what they have to do with suicide. I didn't stumble onto the relationship until late in my life. Too late, one might say. A sign that I was a bit of a slow learner and not very observant, even in my best years.

I learned about pink elephants in my childhood. I was warned about them and, naturally, they scared me and I tried to avoid them.

Recently, I read a few articles about depression and suicide. These were very emotional and so, suicide has been somewhat on my mind. And, what I realized, belatedly, is that we all commit a little suicide and, when I thought about it, how to explain this, pink elephants came to mind.

When I was a child, I spent my summers at the lake. We had a cottage and would go each summer. Me with my family, more or less. My brothers and my mother certainly. My father when he could, which was not much of the time - he had to work. My grandparents, more often after they retired.

Across the lake, my grandmother's sister and her family and, also across the lake, my grandparent's friend and ex-housemate: Ross McAnuff and his family. Despite being similar age to my grandparents, he was never Ross or Mr. McAnuff. He was always Ross McAnuff, in full, to distinguish him from Ross, my brother.

It was Ross McAnuff who taught us about pink elephants. He was like family and very friendly. We often visited. Either our families, all together, or just me and my brothers, on an adventure across the lake, where we would visit and he would invite us in, tell us some stories or jokes, give us treats and then we would be on our way again.

Often we made fires, out on the rocks by the water. Sometimes to cook, sometimes roast wieners and marshmallows, sometimes to warm up but mostly just for fun. And Ross McAnuff, when we made a fire, would always warn us not to step on the pink elephants. These were the burning embers that often enough popped out of the fires onto the rocks. If we stepped on them, in our bare feet, always bare feet, we were liable to get a nasty little burn. We could run to the cool water, but it would be too late. It would hurt and stop our running around. Ross McAnuff would be sympathetic and, soon enough, we would be back to running around and he would remind us again: "watch out for pink elephants" and "don't step on any pink elephants".

Pink elephants, if you stepped on them, were painful. It was best to avoid them and, if you did step on one, it was best to lift your foot as quickly as possible. This often caused painful accidents or, if we were too slow, nasty burns. Between the good advice and the painful experience, we learned to avoid pink elephants. We became cautious and gave up some of our freedom and fun, in order to avoid the painful experienced of pink elephants.

Suicide seems something else entirely. But it's not.

Sometimes the experience of life is painful, like pink elephants. A pink elephant, despite the name, is a little thing. Even so, stepping on one will quickly stop your enjoyment of life, at least for a little while. But, being little, we soon recovered and returned to life and so we often repeated our lessons. But the reaction to withdraw. To stop.  To give up the fun and focus on the pain and want nothing but for it to go away is like a little suicide. And when the pain comes not from pink elephants but from life itself, or seems to, then one wants to escape from life and, if the pain is too much or too long, some people lose hope and they do escape.

What I realized, after all these years, is that suicide is avoidance of life and that we do it a little every day. A little suicide. Some experiences are painful. They stop our enjoyment of life and we avoid them. But in avoiding them, if we become too cautious, we also avoid the fun and enjoyment of life. Some of us avoid life a little, and live it a little less. Some of us avoid life completely. Suicide is just the extreme case, but it is something we all do, more or less.