U MURDER R E D R U M U SUICIDE

By Gladys Lawson

For two weeks, I cut my arms with a dirty razor blade because I hoped I would get an infection and die. One day I ended up in the hospital with septicemia and nearly died. The funny thing was when I was faced with the possibility of death. I didn’t want to die. When the doctors discovered all the cuts on my arms, they told my parents, who contacted TTS, and a counselor came to see me in the hospital. It was weird; it was a bit like in the Matrix movie, where Neo was told to choose a pill. I was told to choose life over death and that in order for me to get over my own problems, I should try and help other people. My counselor took me to the children’s cancer unit in the hospital and showed me some children who had various types and stages of cancer.

Suddenly, my trying to kill myself because my boyfriend had dumped me seemed so pathetic and incomprehensible. My TTS counselor kept in touch with me every day for weeks. She checked that I was going to school and spoke to my parents about any concerns for me they might have. She still calls me and still makes sure that I focus on my dreams and work toward them. I want to become a Clinical Research Scientist and help people with cancer get better. I go to the cancer ward every week, and I love talking to the children there and taking them on trips with the hospital staff. I love that they are fighters and want to live, and I thank God every day for the man who talked to my mom at her job days before I nearly died and gave her and her work colleagues the TTS card with their emergency number on it. You know what’s strange, my mom said he was a Black man, but one of her work colleagues insists he was an

Oriental man while another said he was a White man. My mom says she has never seen him before and has not seen him since. She thinks his name is P. Hollister, but she isn’t sure. I know he was a Godsend, and I now see that life is precious, and when I was faced with death, I didn’t really want to die.”

“Boys don’t cry, boys slug it out and don’t go crying to mama. Boys become men in the playground. No one actually says these words to you when you’re fifteen, but by the time you get to fifteen, you’ve heard them so many times that you feel if you don’t get brave and live up to them, then you’re not a real boy, you’re a wimp. My family moved because my dad got an excellent job, and I had to change schools. Changing schools meant leaving the security of my friends and going to a foreign territory where I had to make new friends. My dad said that the new school would be better as it was higher up the league table than my old school. The first day I went there, I hated it.

There was a group of boys who seemed to run the school, and I hated them. One day they were hitting this boy two years their junior, and no one stood up for him, so I did. They waited for me after school that day and kicked the shit out of me. I went home and said that I had been hit several times during rugby, and no one questioned me. My dad said, ‘That’s my boy!’ He was so proud of my bruises. They bullied me for weeks until I couldn’t take it anymore. I remember waking up, getting dressed, and the next thing I was at the train station, standing on the platform waiting to jump in front of the fast train from Euston to Northampton.

The automated voice warned people to move away from the edge of the platform as the fast train would not be stopping at this station. Eyes closed. I waited.

The train didn’t come. I waited some more then I heard shouting and running. I turned and saw the boy I had helped at school running towards me with this woman right behind him. The boy grabbed my arm and pulled me back from the edge of the platform. He told me he used to come here when he thought of ending things, but then he had talked to someone, and they had put him in touch with TTS. He introduced me to the woman who he said was his counselor. He said he had just come to show her the platform he used to stand on waiting for the fast train. He said he would come ten minutes earlier, and by the time the train was a few minutes away, he would chicken out and go home. He also said that the train was never late…..

I work with TTS as a youth support worker, and I talk to other kids and tell them my story, and they listen. I tell them what TTS has told me, ‘Bullies want to make you a victim, but you don’t have to be a victim.’ I believe that by Talking To Someone, you can save your life!”

The screen went black.

Anna turned and looked at Sergeant Kelleher. She saw him blink several times then look away. “Sergeant Kelleher, the aims of TTS are as follows:

- To stop people from killing themselves.

- To make people want to choose life.

- To shut down suicide chat rooms and self-harming sites.

-To replace every one of those evil sites with sites containing our message and connect people to other people or like-minded groups who can help them. I’m talking about organizations like the Samaritans, NSPCC, Kidscape, ChildLine, Centre Point, the Prince’s Trust in short anywhere these people can contact or go to and get help….

"TTS?" Sergeant Kelleher asked.

"It stands for Talk To Someone," Anna answered.

Suddenly it clicked, "I thought I recognized you! You're the lady I read about in the newspaper the other day. It was an article written by Chris Plummer in the Sunday Newspaper. The article said that you don't see dead people; you just talk to them in your sleep!"

" Sergeant Kelleher, what will it take for you to believe in me?"

“Tell me something that no one else knows?” He joked.

“Okay, but when you’re freaking out, remember you asked me to do this.”

“Believe me, one thing I do not do is freak out Mrs. Lewis-”

“Call me Anna.”

“Okay, Anna, tell me something no one else knows?”

Anna studied his handsome face for a few moments, “The last thing your father said to you before he died was, Johnny, make every minute of your life count, help those who can’t help themselves, and enjoy your life. He called you Johnny, the nickname he’s used for you since you were nearly 5 years old, and fell off the bike he was teaching you to ride.

He says he had taken his eyes off you for mere seconds to light a cigarette, and you went riding off by yourself and landed in a rose bush.

He was upset because he was not supposed to be smoking and had told your mom that he had quit but would take you to the park and sneak a cigarette. Even after all these years, you still blame yourself.

You feel that if you hadn’t kept your father’s secret and told your mom, he would have quit smoking and wouldn’t have died from lung cancer. He says to tell you that you were the child, and he was the adult; you shouldn’t blame yourself for his actions and his bad choices.”

Blood rushed to Sergeant Kelleher’s head, and he found that he couldn’t breathe. Fear manifested itself as a strong pressure in his chest.

His blood went cold, and he felt sick, “How did you . . . How the hell did you know that?” He whispered.

“How the hell did you know that?” Shock etched itself into his being and resonated on his face. Fear engulfed him – it paralyzed him as he stared at her different-colored eyes.

“He just told me-”

“My father just spoke to you!” Scared, he looked around the room for the sign of a presence, “what the are you doing?” He asked Anna; his eyes scanned the room again, and a trembling hand ran through his hair.

“Why would you do this to me?”

“I’m telling you something that no one else knows,” Anna answered, concerned at his response, “Just like you asked me to, Sergeant Kelleher.”

“Are you a psychic? I don’t understand what the . . . My late father just spoke to you. My dead dad just told you all that?” His voice broke as tears rushed into his eyes. He tried to compose himself but (in Anna's words) he was freaking out.

Gladys Lawson is a pathology manager, author, and volunteers as an inspirational mentor with an education charity that works with teenagers to inspire them to reach their full potential.

Gladys has written a number of books over the years and has a passion for taking important issues, doing a lot of research, and producing stories that people can relate to and characters that people remember. She also writes poems and songs, many of which can be found in her books. She says jokingly that her first poem was about a Spider, which she wrote when she was about 6 years old; it won her a prize and gave her the writing bug she has today.

U Murder U (Suicide) is available on Amazon in paperback (£9.99) and Kindle format (£8.39 or free via app) on Amazon at paperback –red cover https://bit.ly/3VO1mOz / Kindle format – black coverhttps://bit.ly/3UwYCEr