Hopelessness

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.

Psalm 55:22

There are few things more damaging to the human psyche than hopelessness - the despair of believing that a situation is impossible to solve, cure, or deal with.  Without hope of a better tomorrow, there is no reason to live.  Clearly that was the situation for a 64-year-old man named Eugene in Phoenix, Arizona whose wife became ill.  For whatever reason, he was afraid that she either had cancer, or was HIV positive because of the prostitutes he used to frequent when he worked for the railroad in New York.  In his despondency, he decided to kill his wife and then commit suicide.

There was an nagging wrinkle in this plan, however,.  The couple had a 27-year-old son who lived at home.  According to Eugene, the son played video games all day and had no girlfriend, regular friends, or a job, and was dependent on his parents for his living situation.  The father "despaired" of what would happen to his son after the death of the mother and the suicide of the dad.  Eugene's solution to the overall problem is horrifying.

He took a 14-inch knife from the kitchen, went upstairs and stabbed his sleeping wife, then knocked on his son's bedroom door, and when he answered, Eugene stabbed him to death as well.  He then tried "several different means" to commit suicide, all of which were unsuccessful.  Finally, after several days, he called the police and suggested they needed to come to the house.

As someone who has suffered from depression on and off for years, I have great empathy for this man and the situation he found himself in:  the guilt he had carried for years because of his unfaithfulness to his wife, his fears regarding his wife's illness and what that might mean to the family, his disgust at his son's indolence and his desire/need to push his son out of the house and into the world to fend for himself.  One of those stressors would be difficult to live with.  Put three of them together, and the result is devastating.  

It is heartbreaking that this man did not have a strong faith system, neighbors/friends/relatives to confide in, a pastor to seek wisdom from, or the resources of a medical professional. Heartbreaking also that no one seemed to realize the ticking time bomb of his mental health. The greatest tragedy, however, is the wife and the son, whatever their faults, who brutally died by the hand of someone who was supposed to love and protect them.