Thursday, February 26, 2009

Hard to blog through sadness....

It's been a long time since my last blog. A big part of my noted absence (ha!) from the blogosphere is that we are busily freezing code for release 1.8.3 of Quest Code Tester, plus I am building a thorough automated regression test for this tool. Wow, that takes a lot of time, even when I use Code Tester to help me test....Code Tester.

I wish, though, that that's all it was.

Instead, I have had a hard time returning to my blog because on February 2, a 23-year old friend of my son, who we have known since he was six, committed suicide by jumping from the top of his apartment building.

His suicide hit me hard, not only because I knew Jeff when he was little (we hadn't actually seen him for more than a few passing words and minutes for the last several years) and because his father was a good friend of ours. But also because it has been hard for my mind to not stray into thinking what it would have been like if Eli (same age, many similar general life circumstances)....

And then my mind shuts down in pain and horror, and I move away from those thoughts, leaving just emptiness, sadness, and little motivation to gush about the bright corners of the world.

6 comments:

Tonguç said...

Steven I am very sorry for your lost.

I believe life is much more harder for youngs compared to 10 or 20 years ago and I feel like it is getting worser and worser each day.

Patrick Barel said...

My condolences on your loss. Hope you and Eli are coping with this situation. Hope to talk to you again soon.

Erik van Roon said...

Steven, my condolences.
Every death is terrible news. At a young age it's worse. Suicide makes it unbearable.
I hope you'll find all the love and support you need right now.
And don't worry about being 'incommunicado'. In times like these there are things that are a lot more important then, even, plsql.

Erik van Roon

Yet Another Mother Runner said...

Oh, That's so terrible!! A parent's worst nightmare, even if not our own.
Like Erik pointed out the age and the suicide only increase the pain exponentially.
I hope you and your family find the courage to cope with your loss!!
And I hope writing about it helped, if only a little.

Unknown said...

Steven, I am sorry for the loss you and your son are experiencing. As a parent the loss of anyones child always affects me. I beleive in God and it pains me to see the young have anything bad come to them; youth is suppose to be a time of fun and exploration - and yes 23 is still young. The only thing that helps me comfort myself is to think that the individual that has passed is sitting with their creator looking down at the rest of us. I think that those who have passed now get to learn the ultimate secret that we struggle with trying to understand daily. May you and your son find peace within yourselves and realize that this person who took his life was not trying to bring pain to your lives; it was probably the last thing on his mind. The unfortunate circumstances that brings people to take their own lives must be a very heavy burden to carry for the individual and that is why they decided to leave us. Take care.

Steven Feuerstein said...

Many thanks for your kind words....

SF