As the Virginia Tech shooter's plays were being shown in tv news broadcasts I was reminded of the string of stories and poems I wrote about suicide when I was a teenager trying to come to terms with my mother's series of attempted suicides. I was just trying to wrap my brain around the reason or reasons why she might have wanted to die, so I had a number of scenarios where my characters decided to kill themselves. The one that comes most readily to mind involved a lonely and isolated elderly widow who decided to starve herself to death and died in her attic surrounded by her mementos and photo albums, remembering her husband and family. (I no longer have the story.) I suppose someone could have concluded that I was suicidal, but that was not the case. I could picture someone writing the oft quoted plays if they were trying to deal with feelings about a past experience of abuse. Who knew the author would end up committing mass murder?
I just hope that we don't end up going too far in the other direction and prevent the kind of catharsis I experienced and insight that I gained in writing my short stories.
