When All Hope Is Gone: Death By Suicide

In his poem, “Wasteland” T. S. Elliot wrote the opening line: “April is the cruelest month.”

Truth be told all months are cruel when it comes to death by suicide.

On April 16, 2026, former Virginia Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, after murdering his wife died by suicide.

I can only begin to imagine the trauma for his son and daughter. Both were in the home at the time.

Reports indicate that Mr. Fairfax’s life was in a tailspin. His professional and personal life were a mess. Any attempts to recover from this downward spiral would have required an unyielding commitment and effort from Mr. Fairfax.

Death by suicide is no stranger to my family, neighbors, friends, and co-workers.

In my thirty one years of work in Virginia’s public schools, I saw the impact when students, teachers, and parents died by suicide.

Hearts are forever crushed.

Remaining loved ones always ask— could I have done anything differently to have prevented one of life’s cruelest intrusions?

The United States Center For Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2023, 49,000 people died by suicide. That is one death every eleven minutes.

In Virginia there are fourteen cities with a population range from 41,705 to 49,627. The 2023 deaths by suicide is the equivalent of wiping out one of those cities.

Despite efforts to improve access to mental health care and the creation of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, we still lose too many people to death by suicide.

Writer Rick Bragg’s book, Somebody Told Me, is comprised of newspaper stories he wrote. The last chapter is titled “Living and Dying.”

In that chapter, the article: On Florida Bridge, Troopers Are Also Suicide Counselors, I read about troopers who encounter people on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. These individuals are poised to jump off the bridge. Quite simply, they have lost all hope.

With non-threatening compassion and patience, the officers quickly work to establish a rapport with the troubled jumper.

Sometimes, officers find that a simple touch or gentle words of reason change the jumper’s thinking. In those altered seconds, officers are able to help the person to move away from that precarious point on the bridge.

Doesn’t matter if the person is a public figure or a troubled soul on the edge of a bridge, we must work to provide more opportunities to help and assist the hopeless individuals who are pondering death by suicide.

In a country that can build skyscrapers that push skylines upward, propel rockets into the blue yonder, and perform life changing medical operations, we can’t rest until we figure out even more successful interventions to prevent death by suicide.

At this very moment someone’s hopeless heart is ticking toward that eleven minutes mark.

Doesn’t America want to break the cruelty of this heartbreaking cycle?