I am a Coward

I am too cowardly to take my own life.

This is what I told myself after reading an article about a Cebu, Philippines policeman who killed himself over, according to initial reports, family and financial problems.

The homicide investigator said the poor guy's woes must have stacked up so much that he felt he had no other recourse.

Many would say it was a cowardly act.  For me, though, taking your own life takes great courage, a whole lot of it.  

If it boils down to taking a life just to defend myself and my family, I can do it. I would willingly and obligingly do it.  

But to send my soul to hell with my own hands?  I am too much of a coward to do so, and it is not because I do not want to be roasted alive with the lawyers. (Or was it "with the liars?" Not sure which.)

I would rather face those tribulations than knife myself to death, or shoot a bullet into my temple, or jump from a bridge, or suddenly dash into the path of an oncoming car or a train, among other ways to putting an end to a pathetic existence.  

I am just too much of a coward to do any one of them.

I just could not imagine how excruciating the pain can be, when that knife plunges into your gut, or when that bullet carves a path from one side of the head to the other, or when your bones break into pieces after the fall, or when your face is smashed to a pulp by the hood of the car or the front of the train. I shudder even at the thought of it.

I am just a coward; and I  cannot even put a brave face and pretend I am one courageous fellow.

Because I am a coward, not fearless enough to face the pain when suicide presents itself as the only action to take, I instead believe that all problems have their solutions, and that there is a rainbow always after the rain (even if it is not really the case).

I have my own share of aches and heartbreaks, of failures and downfalls, when the world seemed to be conspiring against me, when it seemed there is no one to turn to. 

Heck, my wife even has to frantically look for someone to borrow money from for our children's tuition because I have nothing to send them from abroad and exams are already tomorrow.

I agonized over the fact that my so wonderful wife had to go through the experience, which is in addition to the fear that anytime somebody will come and demolish the whole neighborhood back home, because a private claimant won the court battle over ownership of the land.  

I always fear for my family, and the feeling is eating on me each waking moment.

I am, however, too much of a coward to jump from the 19th floor of the building I am currently living in to make that feeling go away.

That is why I salute that policeman and other suicides for having the courage to kill themselves.

One thing I don't understand, though, is why they do so when, in my experience, the problems I faced always, in the end, have their way of sorting out?

Maybe, I am just one lucky coward.