What the Former Ranger Wrote

I'm incredibly moved by this.

Former Ranger Ted Janis had a moving, smart essay in The Daily Beast this week. It's about surviving the suicides of two Ranger friends and then losing another a few months ago.

"The week after my friend’s funeral, I read David Brooks’ article on suicide in the New York Times where he describes Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book Stay: A History of Suicides and the Philosophies Against It.  With my friend’s death still haunting me, one passage in particular stood out.

“Suicides happen in clusters, with one person’s suicide influencing the other’s. If a parent commits suicide, his or her children are three times as likely to do so at some point in their lives… People in the act of committing suicide may feel isolated, but, in fact, they are deeply connected to those around them. As Hecht put it, if you want your niece to make it through her dark nights, you have to make it through yours.”

Or rather: if you want your Ranger buddy to survive, you have to accept help and fight through your own battles."

Read the whole essay if you have a chance, it's really insightful and well done.

- Jennifer