I live in the suburbs. A quiet area in which seemingly nothing occurs. My street is in the shape of a horse-shoe, it looks like a culdesac if you turn the corner, tucked away from almost everything. The street is laden with average red brick houses, two cars per average 3.5 kid family. Many tender their immaculate lawns, walk their dogs, wash their cars, keep decent jobs and generally keep to their selves. But every once in a while something odd may happen. Mrs Whoboddies alarm goes off or Mr Do-gooders house gets burgled. But this week..something more sinister shook the very foundations of normalcy. My nextdoor neighbor died. She committed suicide by hanging.
In what seemingly looked perfect and ‘normal’, judging solely by outward appearances, something more lay hidden amongst the roses. Every rose has its thorns, I guess this one had one too many. My neighbor was a nurse, a wife and a mother, she nurtured her two sons until they could take care of themselves. Her husband works a respectable blue-collar job…and everything seemed rosy until of course she died.
The death did not impact me in the sense that I was devastated that this particular person had died..however it did impact me in the sense that I realised and remembered nothing is as it seems at face value. This ideal, this dream that we are told will make us happy, often doesn’t. Suicides, murders, rapes and abuse occurs in the very places we refuse to believe that the do. The scary thing is, most of us live in suburbia.