I was sitting in the parking lot at Owens Beach at Point Defiance park, enjoying my coffee, looking at all the families enjoying the park, watching the sailboats cruise by. I was listening to The Tobolowsky Files on my local NPR station. It was an episode about comedy - what it is, what it means, how do you create it.
A woman in her 60s approached me, tears streaming down her face and asked me if I had a cell phone she could use and I said "of course." I dialled the number for her and she handed it back to me, saying that it wasn't ringing. I kept trying to call the number, as she clung to my car, weeping. She said that her sister was supposed to meet her at the park and she hadn't come and she needed to ask her for forgiveness.
I asked her what was wrong and she blurted out that she wanted to "go to Jesus today." My first thought was that she was having a religious conversion, but the cross hanging around her neck hinted at something different. I asked her did that mean that she was going to go to church and talk to her pastor, and she told me that she wanted to end her life. I tried to comfort her, ask her what was wrong and she blurted out that her 36 year old son had died 3 years ago of a systemic blood infection and she couldn't go on with the grief and pain; that no one understood her pain. I asked if she had any other children and she said she had a daughter who had just given birth to baby last Tuesday.
"You don't want to do this. Don't you want to be in your grandchild's life? Your daughter's life?"
"No, she doesn't understand. She tells me 'oh, get over it Mom. You're not the only one suffering.' She doesn't love me, not like my son did. He was my best friend, my soul mate. Now I have nothing left to live for."
"Are you married? I'm sure your husband cares about you, what happens to you?"
"No! He doesn't understand either! He only cares if I'm there because I do everything for him, cooking, cleaning. That's the only reason he cares whether I live or die!"
"Do you have a pastor, a minister? Have you talked to him?
"Yes and he doesn't understand either. I know he thinks it's a sin to take your life but I don't care. Jesus will forgive me."
"Do you have a doctor? Are you on medication? When's the last time you saw him?"
"Two weeks ago. He gives me medicine and it doesn't do anything and I'm in so much pain."
I urged her to sit down, or come sit in my car. I offered to take her to her sister's house. Weeping, she shook her head no, she didn't even know where she lives. I asked what her name was and she told me "Laura." She is crying so hard that long streams of liquid are coming out of her nose and she wiped her face with a lace edged hankie. After she was done, she showed me that it was embroidered with "Mother" and she had given it to her mother many years ago and now she was dead. Then we went into the entire litany again of "not having anything to live for."
While we were talking, I looked down and noticed that there was a voicemail on my phone and I told her, look, there's a voicemail from your sister. I put it on speaker for her and in essence her sister said she was worried about Laura, didn't know where she was, and would I call her back.
All of a sudden, she started looking around wildly and said "I have to go! They are looking for me! I don't want them to find me!" and she rushed over to her car and took off at high speed, up the hill. I followed her, calling 911 at the same time. At the top of the hill she turned left, against the one way traffic that goes around the Five Mile Drive. By the time I reached the stop sign, there were several startled looking motorists pulled off onto the shoulder.
When I finally got through to 911 and explained the situation, I had arrived at the exit and I went back around the park, and noticed a police car behind me so I pulled over and waved him down. While I was explaining what had happened, Laura's sister Trish called back and told us that she was afraid of her as well as worried about her. While we were standing there, the officer's radio crackled to life, reporting that a car matching the description I had provided had been find on the opposite side of the park. The policeman and I took off in our separate cars and when we arrived there were two other cop cars there and they were talking to Laura. I pulled up just beyond the last police car, at a discrete distance, parked and waited. After about 10 minutes the officer came back to my car and told me that they had talked to her and Laura denied everything, she wasn't wanting to commit suicide, she had so much to live for, a new grandchild, yadda yadda. I asked the officer if they could put her on a 72 hour hold, and he said no, not really, she sounded fine to them. I looked at him and said "Wow. 16 different kinds of crazy" and he looked me in the eye and said "Pretty much." Then we all drove off, including the wing nut Laura.
So.
I guess I'll never know if I helped Laura to look at things differently or if it was that she was able to convince the cops that everything was okay. In retrospect, what I did was potentially dangerous - what if she had had a gun? Or a knife?
As I pulled into my garage Stephen Tobolowsky was summing up his show and said something to the effect: "We know when it's comedy because it lasts a few only a few minutes; tragedy lasts forever."
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