Being mindful of one another

Two months before committing suicide, Emmanuel Kagyina wrote on his Facebook wall: "Should it be okay for someone to commit suicide if he is so much overpowered by problems? If not what should such a person do? My friend is in danger, help!"

We come out of the womb wailing and enter the tomb often after failing but it makes sense to put up a tenacious fight no matter what.

Turns out there was no "friend". Kagyina was the endangered one; the one being wooed by the grim reaper, and no one of his over 200 Facebook friends discerned and heeded his cry of help; no neighbour, classmate, relative or sibling, none at all in the whole world, reached out with a helping hand. This should make us all pause and consider. How can a man be driven by despair to the point of hurling himself down from the sixth floor of building?

It is certainly quite a lonesome way to die but since what is done cannot be undone, I will leave it at that and focus on answering Kagyina's question posthumously. It is a resounding NO for me. There is no justification whatsoever for someone to snuff out his life. Experience has taught me that rejection is the most painful thing but not even that is worth ending your life over.

No doubt there are moments when you are so despondent, sick and tired of this world that you want to give up. But you have all the reasons not to. We come out of the womb wailing and enter the tomb often after failing but it makes sense to put up a tenacious fight no matter the betrayals and affronts that confront us every day.

I grew up around a health centre and watched many men and women fighting for their lives and learned at a young age that those that fought harder and longer would live to see another day while those who gave up the ghost too soon would be folded immediately and carried home for burial by their weeping relatives. So, like a proverbial frog that fell into a bucket of milk and kicked with all the might in its legs till the milk churned into butter atop which it stepped and jumped out, we must believe in the green light with all our hearts and put up a relentless fight till we rise victoriously against the current that's meant to drown us.

Meanwhile, let us be mindful of each another; reach out with a smile, a pat on the back or a compliment – it could mean the world to somebody who is alone and scared; it probably would have saved Emmanuel Kagyina.