~ Sunday, October §, 1986 -

[ GOT a phone call the
other day from a friend in
Les Angeles to tell me that
a mutual friend in New
Zealand had killed herself.

She was the girlfriend of a
chap we had been working with
on a script last spring.

I'd talked to her several times
at dinner, at parties, ;oing here
and there with a gang of people.
Gne afternoon, for maybe an
hour in a pub, just the two of us
had chatted, comparing notes
about fate and human nature.

She had studied the script |

f was writing and had managed the
delicate diplomatic feat of giving
me a few good suggestions
without getting my back up.

She was very intelligent, had a
great sense of humor. Lots of
sparkle. Sensitivity. Good-look-

| ing, too. I’d guess she was in her
mid-thirties.

| She was the sort of female per-
son, to be frenk, who, if I wasn't
already hapyily married and she
wasn't living with my friend, I
would unctoubtedly have asked
out for a date,

Along with her boyfriend and
her mother, she had spent most
of her spare moments during the
previous winter putting in new
fiooring, and re-doing the walls
and ceiling of a century-old
house in Auckland.

The three of them were living
under the same roof, a domestic
accomplishment of some
magnitude, I thought. I should
say that the mother struck me as
particularly delightful, a woman

North Share News

Bob Hunter

@ strictly personal ®

who had travelled quite a bit and
who enjoyed a good chuckle.

They had me in stitches
describing how they had decided
to re-do the fireplace by basically
smashing it to pieces and re-
building it entirely, a task not
every woman (or man, for that
matter) would feel up to.

The chimney looked a bit odd,
to be sure. But it worked. And
that was what counted. Both
women were thoroughly pleased
with themselves.

And then, last week,
daughter killed herself.

| called the boyfriend in
Auckland and talked to both him
and the mother. Their grief was
pretty raw. In the mother there
was a tone of dull fury.

“Tl guess there are dark spaces
in us all,’’ she said.

Yeh. I guess.

I told her as far as I could teil
you can’t explain anybody's ex-
istence by what happens to them
in one lifetime. It just doesn’t
make any sense that way. No-
body’s life does.

Whatever had happened, her
soul was still out there on its
voyage. Her being couldn’t be
over.

“Something like that, 1 ex-
pect,’’ the mother agreed bleakly.

To my friend all I could offer
was the idea that a lot of people
who die in accidents have actual-
ly brought it on themselves, and
so, in a way, this had to be just a
kind of accident. I was sure she
hadn't really meant to do it.

The inane stuff you say, but
the point is to keep talking. They
wanted someone to talk to.

Suicide is a helluva lot harder

the

on Une survivors than natural
death. For one thing, nobody
knows what to say. Everybody is
embarrassed and ashamed and
feeling betrayed as well as emo-
tionally gored.

My oldest son, when he was a
young teen, muttered once that
he was thinking of killing
himself.

J told him flatly that if he did
he’d have to go back and start all
over aguin and go through
everything he’d gone through ail
over again just to get back to the
point he was at now.

Although | can’t come up with
the slightest shred of physical
evidence that this is true, I
believe it to be the case.

That’s why, while the idea of
further lifetimes might be seen by
a potential suicide as an argu-
ment for moving on, the meta-
physical truth is that you abort
the spiritual mission you were on.
You fail to complete the task.

Besides, you can’t skip ahead
like that.

This is a discussion that has
nothing to do with science or pol-
itics, except the politics of day-
to-day life, duty to each other,
and the obligations of love.

If I'd had the chance, before
she did herself in, I'd have told
the lady in New Zealand that she
didn’t have the right. Oh, if she
was terminally ill and in terrible
pain, for sure! But not just
because of existential angst.

Yet maybe we did talk about
something along these lines, back
in the pub in Auckland, because
the last thing I said to her, I do
remember clearly, was: ‘‘See you
in the next lifetime.’

NEWS photo Tom Burley

NORTH SHORE NEWS publisher Peter Speck shares a joke with Lillian Vander Zalm at the British Col-
umbia and Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s annual awards Friday at the Delta River Inn in
Richmond. Premier Vander Zalm spoke to the convention and answered questions from the floor.

West Van allows outdoor burning

WEST VANCOUVER is one of
the few communities remaining in
the Lower Mainland where out-
door burning is still allowed.

Fire Prevention Bylaw No. 1496,
1955 currently allows small fires
for open air burning of dry leaves,
branches and garden refuse only
during the first four consecutive
Fridays and Saturdays of October
(October 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24
and 25), provided all such fires are
distinguished by 7 p.m. each day.

“Such burning is not acceptable
to many members of our com-
munity — some for reasons of
health. If we are to continue, if re-
quires responsible action on the
part of residents,’' stated Mayor
Derrick Humphreys.

Dry leaves, branches and garden
refuse do not create large quan-
tities of smoke, he says, however,
if these are wet or other substances
not permitted under these reguia-

tions are burned this usually results
in clouds of thick smoke
blanketing the residential en-
vironment.

‘I therefore urge residents of
West Vancouver to be good
neighbors and responsible citizens,
do not jeopardize the privilege now
afforded to all residents of West
Vancouver. Please burn dry mate-
rial, use common sense and keep
safety as a paramount considera-
tion,’’ states Humphreys.

WV Liberals meet

PORMER SUPERINTENDENI
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Pdear Carlin is thus far the only
announced nominee in the West-
Vancouver Howe Sound Provincial
Jiberal Riding Association’s
scheduled Oct. @ nominating
meting.

Guest speaker at the meeting will
be provincial Liberal leader Art
Lee.

The meeting is scheduled to be
held in the Libera! activity centre,
suite 201B, 1420 Marine Drive,
North Vancouver.

Registration is from 7 to 8 p-m.

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