Neil Young’s deeply beautiful song from the mid-60s, “Expecting to Fly” begins with the lyrics: “There you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly…” And later, he sings, “All the years we spent with feeling, ended with a cry, babe, ended with a cry, babe, ended with a cry…”
That song was echoing through me today as I absorbed the news from a childhood friend that his wife of 26 years jumped off a 150 feet high bridge into the Hudson River in upstate NY in the middle of the night, just four days ago. Her body was recovered soon afterwards, and when he got up in the morning, he found her suicide note on the table.
She was a bit of a fragile soul and in my last conversations with her a few months ago, she was clearly struggling under the weight of many worries. Although in recent weeks she had been more depressed, had expressed thoughts of ending her life and was receiving some treatment, no one around her imagined she would actually commit suicide. But apparently, she was totally ready because, according to cameras on the bridge, she got out of the car and immediately jumped, unlike many jumpers who spend some time waiting at the edge before they actually do it.
While Neil Young’s song is actually about recovering from the breakup of a relationship, today I kept seeing her on top of that bridge railing, “on the edge of her feather,” hanging on to life by a delicate thread, with some part of her “expecting to fly,” if only for a few seconds, joyfully freeing herself of earthy bounds and pain as she jumped. Or did she “end with a cry”, maybe in silent terror in that irreversible moment before she hit the water? We will never know.
But what I do know, first of all, is that my friend has a long road of grieving and healing ahead of him, and of course he will never be the same after what happened. That pains me, along with the frustration that the mental health system failed his wife in the end, in spite of whatever efforts were made. I also know that surviving in this crazy world is tough and somewhat incredible, and the ability to stay alive in some reasonable degree of physical and mental health, with some sense of joy and fulfillment, is not to be taken for granted. Staying alive is truly a miracle.
Many of us comfort ourselves with the belief that we are strong and resilient and can take anything that life throws at us. I certainly find great comfort in that, but in reality, sometimes any one of us can be on the edge of our feather, and by sheer grace we find solid ground again to keep going. But some of us may not. So let us be compassionate with those who struggle, however challenging their situations may be for us, and, above all, be compassionate with ourselves, and grateful for life. She could be any one of us. After all, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Farewell dear Victoria.
