SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR
He tried to end his life because
depression left him feeling he had nothing to live for. Having miraculously survived, he soon found out just how wrong he had been.
That Sunday my wife, Trish, had gone to Mass without me as usual. As much as I wanted our marriage, our family, to be close again, I still couldn’t bring myself to go back to church regularly. Not after everything that had happened.
On her way home, Trish had picked up The Philadelphia Inquirer. I sat at the kitchen table with her and glanced at the front page. January 20, 2008. The presidential primaries were in full swing; the country was in a recession.
My concerns were closer to home. A year earlier, I’d moved back in, after being separated
from Trish for five years. I was grateful to be home again, but there still seemed to be a barrier between me and my wife and our children. After all we’d been through—all I’d put them through—I wanted to put the past behind us. How else would we be able to move on with our lives?
A headline caught my eye: “After leap breaks body, a miracle renews spirit.” The story was about Jordan Burnham,
an 18-year-old in the next town over. He’d had everything going for him—athletic, popular, elected to the homecoming court. But he had struggled with depression and, that past September, jumped from the ninth floor of an apartment building. And survived.
It was as if I were reading my own story, only I was nowhere near as brave as this young man. The trouble for me had started in the waning
months of 1998...READ MORE
