Bill Roper's Journal

This summer, on July 16th here in Chicago, I’m going to be taking part in a 20 mile overnight walk to raise funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, because it’s something I need to do. I’ve had two experiences with close friends who attempted suicide, one who succeeded. Neither case could possibly be classified as a “good thing” – in fact, they were among the worst things that have happened in my life.

My best friend from high school committed suicide after my freshman year of college for reasons that I still don’t actually know, although I’ve made some guesses over time. I felt guilty about this for years, despite the fact that there wasn’t any real chance that I might have been able to prevent it. And, of course, what I felt couldn’t possibly have been any worse than what his parents and brother felt.

Many years later, a close friend of Gretchen’s and mine attempted suicide several times over the course of a few years, but – mercifully! – never quite succeeded. (I don’t want to go into the details here, because he is doing much better now and deserves his privacy.) I’m very happy that he failed, not just for his sake, but because of the devastation that he would have left in his wake as a result.

So I’m doing this because I want to help people understand that suicide isn’t a solution and because I really hate what it does to the folks that it leaves behind.

I’ve committed to raise $1000 for this walk. If I have to, I’ll come up with it out of my own pocket. But honestly, it would mean much more if a chunk of that money came from my friends, because it’s going to be a long walk and a long night and I’d like to feel like it matters to you too.

So if you want to, you can donate by going to the website at www.theovernight.org, looking up Bill Roper, and giving a credit card number; or you can give me a check or cash and your name and address and I’ll make sure that it gets to the right place.

Thanks for listening.

Sam and I walked something between 8 and 9 miles this morning. And, boy, are my feet tired. (But if I can solve the blister problem, I'll be in good shape, I think.)

It was a rather large block, from here to the corner of Oakton and Des Plaines River Road and back, a total of about 5.9 miles.

Unfortunately, I'm still looking for a Saturday Tribune, since the 7-11 was out of them. They had plenty of the Sunday paper though. If it included Saturday night's Lotto numbers, I'd even be willing to buy one.

Debbie Ohi asked about "What-if" situations in life -- what sort of thing do you regret about your life that you'd go back and change.

Well, we all make mistakes. Some are more preventable than others.

Having both parents die from the same preventable form of cancer would have to be high on my list of things to fix, given a time machine. (The magic word is "colonoscopy", folks.) My dad would have been 72 this month, my mom 73 last month if they'd lived. Other than the cancer that killed them, they were both pretty healthy, so I'd like to think they'd still be around. And -- even though Gretchen occasionally refers to my father as a "food Nazi" (which is another one of those long stories) -- I miss them both a lot.

Then there are relationships. I certainly spent a lot of my life chasing the wrong women, although that has to be classified as a "learning experience". I don't know that I'd necessarily want to unwind most of that. You've got to get those learning experiences somehow.

Gretchen and I are an interesting case. If we'd had the sense that God gave a turnip, we probably would have gotten married around 1986-7 or thereabouts. But we didn't. And Carol and I got engaged and married instead, which caused Carol far more pain than I would have ever wanted. (It caused me a fair amount of pain too, but I guess I figure I deserved it.) The happy thing was that Carol and I managed to get out of the relationship as friends and that Carol is recently and happily married to a Real Nice Guy (TM).

Would I avoid causing Carol that much pain given the temporal option to do so? Like a shot.

And Gretchen and I have been married for just over nine years now. Which is a good thing.

For a long time, the biggest thing on my "What If" list was my best friend from high school who committed suicide the day before I got back from my first year of college. I spent a long time beating myself up over that particular what if. What if I'd come home a day earlier? I could have. I'd stayed down at college after finals were over for an extra day or two because college is a fun place to be when you don't actually have classes to deal with. If I'd come home when I "should have", I might have been on the phone to him and talking instead of having him hang himself. Or so I thought.

About a year or so ago, my friend Dorotha (who you'll hear on the album), took part in a sponsored anti-suicide walk. This apparently caused my brain to start percolating again, because I think I finally figured out what happened all those years ago.

I think my best friend hanged himself because his parents reacted badly when he told them he was gay. I don't *know* that this was what happened, but everything that happened around then fits. I'd like to think that I might still have been able to help if I'd been standing in the right spot at the right time, but I'll never know. I haven't tried checking this out, because it would only dig up old hurts for his parents, even if I was able to find them.

But, you know, sometimes *believing* that you understand is good enough. And it beats the heck out of *knowing* that you don't understand.

It doesn't make it less of a terrible waste, though.