Gary Speed was an accomplished sportsman with a fabulous playing career and he was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) last year. Reports echo shock and upset.

The BBC report records “no suspicious circumstances“. The Age tells that he “committed suicide”. I’ve written about our terminology before and I am still affronted by the term committed suicide. It is simpler, less judgemental to say died by suicide and it’s less stigmatising to say died by suicide. To commit is to perpetrate a transgression or offence, and suicide is something different again. Suicide may be an act that defies understanding and I find it helpful and less judgmental to simply describe suicide without euphemisms or implied accusations of wrongdoing.

Today is a sad day for football, for the fans, friends, and family of Gary Speed.

If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.

Jobs, S. (2005) Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die. Retrieved October 12, 2011,

When I read that comment I immediately felt annoyed, on reading it again now I am less annoyed. I think it was the regret Hughes expressed that disturbed me. I am troubled that we harbour regrets after someone dies, and of course there are always regrets.

It seems to be a natural thing to be surprised by death. It is almost as if dying is something that happens to others, and there’s something unexpected in the experience when we are touched by death. I wait for death everyday, I still expect others to die rather than me, but I know it is around. It’s not that I’m dreadfully morbid but maybe realistically so.

Sometimes when the phone rings at night I answer with trepidation expecting sad news. I try to prepare myself for the unexpected. I am saddened by every loss but rarely surprised, and even less often do I feel regret about what I could or should have done.

It might be something I have come to terms with since Mottsu’s death. In the aftermath of the loss of him I felt incredible shock and surprise and regret, for almost everything I had and everything I hadn’t done. Grieving is different altogether to regret and it’s easier now, years later, to accept that people to go when it is their time.

Allan Jeans died at age 77, when exactly was Kim Hughes going to get to know him better? For me it’s an odd, uncomfortable, regret, and I can’t know what Hughes really meant from one brief quote in the newspaper.

Eulogies should celebrate, when eulogies are published and read, it is too late for regrets.

I am relieved to read that William Monroe is recovering after being shot and his condition has been upgraded from critical to fair.

Officer Dane Reister,the Police Officer who fired the shots and inflicted the wounds on William Monroe is on administrative leave.

There is no word of the people in the park who dialled 911 because a young man was acting in a peculiar manner.

The Department of Justice is investigating the incident, reviewing the use of police force when Officers are called to encounter people with mental health issues.

The threatener, the threatened, the protector using force, the aftermath of a community crisis. I am hoping more collaboration will be possible in future so that the inherent duty of care for one and another can be better exercised. That we can better support all sides, as a priority, when each encounters the other. Support, right there in the moment, with fewer 911 calls, less shots fired, and no DOJ investigations required.

At a panel discussion recently a young woman spoke of dark times she experienced during a psychotic break. She said that she was consoled by the knowledge that she had choices about living. Knowing that she could choose not to live helped keep her alive. The knowledge that she could leave somehow kept her safer. That’s difficult to comprehend and I believe her, life and death choices aren’t talked about a lot, we should talk more.

The experience of that fabulous woman was backed up by this short blog entry about Physician-Assisted Suicide and Behavioral Economics: “The paradox is the finding that when terminal patients in Oregon receive lethal medication (under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act), they often feel a sense of greater wellbeing and a desire to live longer. In 2010, of 96 patients requested lethal medication, only 61 actually took it. Even more interesting are the many anecdotal accounts of terminal patients, upon receiving lethal medication, that feel a surge of wellbeing and a desire to persevere through their illness.”

That’s really interesting, we can be empowered to live by feeling empowered to die.

Crisis counselling is available around the world. In Australia Life Line 13 11 14.

He wrote about the process and his beliefs before dying of the complications of a severe cancer.

“The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don’t look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.”

Much loved and much missed.

A number of people at the funeral said that although it was a sad occasion the service was special.

I recall a time Mottsu’s parents visited from New Zealand and we took them out for a special dinner to Jean Jacques, on St Kilda beach. Mottsu’s Dad ordered an entrée of mussels and he was disappointed. He was thinking of delicious New Zealand green lipped mussels, one of the largest mussel species, he was served little local Melbourne mussels. He was disappointed with the mussels, Mottsu and I were disappointed that he was disappointed. Things in Australia were never as at home. I love to tell that story whenever somebody mentions eating our little local mussels. For Mottsu’s Dad there was nowhere that compared to New Zealand.

I also remember dancing with Mottsu’s Dad at Mottsu’s brother’s wedding. We managed a reasonably synchronised shuffle. He shook a little, trembled with a little shake that arose from somewhere deep down. Dancing wasn’t something he did very much of.

I loved Mottsu’s Dad, shy tremor and all.

He was a truly good man, a father who lost his son too early.

Apparently the world will try to contact every man and every dog after they die.

Wally, Mottsu’s dog died February 6 2008. I dreamt of Wally last week, in the dream I had gone to stay a house in the country. A holiday. I suddenly remembered that I had left Wally at home alone, I had forgotten him. Alarmed I started running down the local roads to find him. I woke up weeping and distressed.

Two days later it surreal to receive and email headed ‘Wally Misses You’. I was startled, I certainly miss Wally and I was stunned to think he missed me, afterall he is buried in the garden. The message came from DogBook, an application hosted by Facebook. The email read:

from Dogbook
reply-to Facebook
to Anne
date 22 April 2011 14:26
subject Wally misses you!
mailed-by facebookappmail.com

We can’t wait to get you back.
VISIT DOGBOOK
The Dogbook Team

The email tells me my “..dog deserves a life”, that’s wrong Dogbook, what my dog deserves is to rest in peace.

It isn’t possible to be prepared for these unexpected messages, I am mentioning them anyway.

A journalist on twitter commented that, “When you can’t do anything else, you can bear witness.” I am bearing witness to the events of the world and I’m giddy with stories of loss and devastation. I’m distressed and depleted. The aftermath of the disasters is heart-wrenching and I sit and watch and read.

Feeling.

The words of Joseph Campbell run through my head:
“You might ask yourself the question: if I were confronted with a situation of total
disaster, if everything I loved and thought I lived for were devastated, what would I
live for? If I were to come home and find my family murdered, my house burned up,
or my career wiped out by some disaster or another, what would sustain me? We read
about these thing every day and we think, well that only happens to other people. But
what if it happened to me? What would lead me to know that I could go on living and
not just crack up and quit?
Now what do you have in your life that would play this role for you? What is the…
great thing for which you would sacrifice your life? What makes you do what you do;
what is the call of your life to you – do you know it? ” Campbell, J. (2004). Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and personal transformation. Novato, CA: New World Library, pp 88.

My heart goes out to the people of Japan, New Zealand and Queensland. I am also finding the thread of my own hero-path and discovering just who I am. It’s important work for me, and for the world. When you can’t do anything else, that’s what you do. It’s good work.

I’m struck with sadness for my friend in her grief. The sudden loss of a daughter is too much to bear, and it is borne nonetheless, while numbed by grief.

I can’t be silent, I do want to replace isolation with community, and my way is to write about the unpopular issues that surround us. I want to allow our darkest times to be shared, understood and appreciated for what they are.

This is the fourth death by suicide that has touched me, through friends, this year and that is a very big number. A lot to bear, when things that only happen to other people happen to you.