Suicide, yeah that’s the word that they use when you take your own life. It’s kind of a brutal word, but that’s the one we have now I like to think of it as crossing to the other side voluntarily and quite honestly this is giving me some comfort what gives me uncomfort is the fear that I would become a nursing patient that’s it in a nutshell. I love volunteering for Hospice. It gives me a great sense of purpose and you know I’ve overcome a fear of nursing homes by doing this, but I see these people I see they’re vacancy in their eyes and you know the fact that they are still physically alive, but they’re no longer. They are mentally emotionally or otherwise sometimes they are and that’s another part of this whole experience or at least they are there and part but they can’t take care of themselves I can take care of myself not only can I take care of myself I’m taking care of myself and now a little bit taken care of Jennifer And prior to this very much taken care of Tess and so I felt useful and I felt valid and even with this I have plenty of personal self-deprecation and problems that I kind of bring on myself that I’m learning how to cope a little better listening to Buddhism and the law of impermanent mean this is a very simple concept but it’s a very powerful one that everything is temporary it may last for years, but it’s still impermanent and it’s our clinging to things and wanting to control them and keep them as is that causes so much suffering and so I’m learning from this Two C change in a different light to see the change is inevitable and will offer new experiences with you’re open for it and this is what I learned in losing Tess. I had 46 years of loving her and caring for her and it was extremely meaningful, but I have to admit that this past year I’ve met new people and gotten closer to other people, including Alice and Lauren and of course Jennifer now two or three years ago I wouldn’t have said hey you know when you pass away, you’re gonna open up all sorts of new doors for me no, not at all. I’m not making a choice in retrospect. I’m saying that the fear of being alone really I’ve just really kind of overcome that I enjoy being alone because I’m not actually totally alone. I have other people in my life. We’re just not living with each other all right so I started talking about suicide. Eric committed suicide and that harsh reality has overshadowed a lot of of my adult life actually Eric, who is a huge part of my entire Adult life starting with the day I met Tess and Eric was running around the house playing hide and seek being a little maniac and you know that I became his dad and all those years devoted to that and then he takes his own life at age 44 and all of the repercussions that came from that because he took his own life and that’s what I have to say that the death would’ve been a huge loss, but the fact that he took his own life, throws all sorts of other dimensions on it and so that’s why I have to be aware of that when I talk about if I were to take my own life. This is the subject that you’re not allowed to talk about with anybody and you know then you’ll read a headline just like today or yesterday. Someone took their own life committed. Suicide jumped off a roof. I guess I mean there are some horrible ways to go about it my way if I ever do, it will be with helium which I understand is a very painless way to go now will I ever have the courage to do it will I ever need to do it or will Life take another route to end you know well I get hit by lightning who knows the other night I almost choked when I was out there at the outdoor center with Lauren, but I was sitting all by myself while they were all busy doing different things and all of a sudden I started choking over nothing no food just my esophagus closing down I thought oh my God is this it and somehow the embarrassment seems to be worse than you know the actual choking but anyway I hope it never happens, but I am thinking that all right kind of a suicide note so that I can air it out. I would basically tell everybody how much I loved them how much they mean to me how much they’ve filled my life with love and joy and happiness, and that me taking my own life is no reflection on that at all if I were to take my own life, it would be because I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t wanna live in a wheelchair in a nursing home. You know where somebody else has to take care of me I just don’t want that now you know what if you do have any kind of conversation on that level well of course you don’t want that. Nobody wants that you have no control over that well there’s the part do you have control over that you know could you take control more or less predicting that that’s going to happen and say no I’m not gonna let that happen. I’m gonna put this gas mask on and I’m gonna say goodbye to this world and hello to the next And. I know that if there is a God that God loves us, I know that death is heaven. I know that people are great storytellers and there’s a lot of stories about heaven. Sadly, there are stories about hell, but that’s just a bunch of shit. I believe that the reality is there is life and then there is after life just as there was before life and I have no memories and no knowledge of before I was born people claim that they do fine well my point is if you’re not allowed to talk about it with anybody, it only leaves myself to to figure it out and what I don’t want to do is create a mess and what I don’t wanna do is create a hardship on the people who survive me somebody in the Death Cafe the other day said you know they’re the lucky ones. I thought it was a very bold statement and I said that they are the lucky ones when Tess died when she passed she was ready to go. She said I just want to go and she had cancer. She probably had cancer for years, not just weeks or months, probably for years and in those last weeks and months when I was taking care of her, I was loving her. I was probably loving her as much as more as I ever had in our married life and she actually said to me in at a certain moment she just said I love you and you know that was a just just a heartfelt statement. I love you and you know to hear those words from my wife to hear those words from Tess where my identity our identity was peed in Tess for 46 years Pete and Tess and test did not seek treatment. She knew she was sick. I know she knew she was sick. She was a nurse, but she didn’t seek treatment. She toughed it out. She did the what she did what she wanted to do the way she wanted to do it for all of the weeks months and maybe years that were her remaining time and what she wanted to do was sit there and watch court TV and other shows on TV. that’s what she wanted to do and that’s what we did and ironically I’m afraid to watch TV with Jennifer. I just put that together. I don’t think it’s a cause-and-effect there. I don’t think there’s well that’s what tested that I don’t. I don’t think it’s that. I just think Tess and I were comfortable watching TV and I just don’t feel comfortable watching TV with Jennifer.