(ThyBlackMan.com) Some have found peace or strength in silence. However, it seems these days that very silence has become a killer. Suicides are on the rise, and its not just the celebrities we know of…it’s the people in our neighborhood, the veteran we grew up with, and our own family members. Far too often people around us are resigning themselves to a silence that eats away at them and renders them isolated. Its so easy to ask the hindsight question what was that person going through. Granted many of us have a life, and we are going though our own challenges and crisis, but the question has to remain did we have time to care.
Life moves at a rapid pace for most of us, so we never take the time to realize how interconnected we are. When we see natural disasters, war and famine in the world it tends to stop us in our tracks and remind us that the world is bigger than ourselves. Depending on the situation it speaks to our humanity in 
understanding those that we see going through the above mentioned need our help. However, we often overlook the warning signs within silence. We don’t really see the person we love withdrawing, and we chalk what they are going through to a phase that will pass. However, sometimes that person is making decisions on whether they want to remain in this world based on the response received
We must get out into our communities and schools and talk to each other about suicide, and mental illness. Silence has a place, but in this we must battle against the silence that will allow our loved ones to descend into the shadows. Sometimes it is necessary to realize even at your worse there is someone going through a challenge that might make you feel what you are facing has hope. This doesn’t diminish what you are going though, but it does better enable you to see the silence that can kill.
If you are walking in silence contemplating the ultimate solution to temporary problems, there is still hope. There are people in this world that care about you for no other reason than you are a human being and your life is important. before deciding on the ultimate silence consider talking to a loved one, your pastor, or calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Feeling like you are invisible, silenced, broken, or not needed in this world is actually understandable, and please know you are not alone in that many of us face those feelings.
When someone closes their eyes its too late to notice their silence. It’s important that we take the time to pay more attention to each other as this is also affecting our children. With so much negativity, violence and fear in the world it is very hard to shield our children as they read about the ugly in this world…or they are confronted by such. It is important to make sure they have someone they can talk to so that the very silence we are speaking on doesn’t take the babies we hold so dear to our hearts. Yes, life is busy for everyone…but silence can kill if we don’t pay attention.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.
