Do you think the title is brutal? I lack window-dressing and tact. Today is the fourth Saturday of the month, the number four is associated (as a friend told me) with endings and death and Saturday is associated with Saturn, the hard taskmaster of the cosmos. So, because I needed to pick a day per month to commemorate the deaths due to suicide….the names I will never see to add to my books. I don’t want to be subtle about these men and women whose names I cannot know. I want the pain of their continued suffering and final dying to be felt, as their families and friends have felt it.

The Department of Defense has begun a monthly mail out on the number of suspected suicides and the number of confirmed suicides among active duty members. This still does not address the suicides among men and women who have ended their military service, but it is better than nothing. …which is what I had before the scandle of thousands of suicides broke the news.

The number of suspected suicides in August was eleven, and in September, seven. I walked the Labyrinth tonight, after ringing my brazen temple bell eighteen times. At the monument, I lit candles for all of them, the unnamed, and in silence. And although I could not call them by name, perhaps they knew my intent—-for though the daylight was strong, shadows moved in the firs and behind my little house as I finished.

Peace be upon you, you suffered and fell—as surely as if still in Iraq or Afghanistan. May time mend the heartbreak of your loved ones, may your names be held softly by those who knew you.

(And as it is Suicide Sunday…I urge you to follow this link to read about the suicide of Jennifer Valdivia, a Navy petty officer who killed herself in 2007 as result of hazing and harassment by a superior.)