I don’t know how many of the people who came to the 7th Annual Benefit  for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention had experienced the suicide of someone whom they loved. But a ripple of understanding ran through the crowd when the event hostess, Erika Kauffman Wheeler, spoke about losing her father to suicide.   I sensed both empathy and anguish.

Some of the women in attendance wore glitters and silk. Others mingled in cotton or denim.  Men in suits with elegant pocket squares shook hands with others in khaki or blue jeans.  But when the chair of the local chapter told us that two of her sons killed themselves, we all reacted as one:  With tears; with winces; with brief, knowing nods.

I studied the faces of my companions, wondering which of them had survived another’s suicide.  Regardless, I know that loss and grief can take other forms — divorce, demotion, distance, depression.

We vote Democrat, we vote Republican, we struggle to succeed, we walk to work, we drive, we take Uber, we post on social media.  We close the door on empty houses; we hear our children playing in the yard; we manage our wealth online; we balance our checkbooks at the kitchen table.   We have dark skin; we have olive complexions; we burn when our paleness meets the hot summer sun. Beneath deftly applied make-up, behind close shaves and gelled hair, our blood flows, our muscles ache, our hearts break.

We are more alike than different.

I have never felt this as keenly as in the last few years.  Unexpectedly, the wall between me and the rest of the world cracked and fell in a heap around my feet.  I stepped over the rubble and let myself mingle in the crowd on the other side.

It’s the third day of the twenty-eighth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Waldo Brookside Rotary Club members supported our fellow Rotarians, Erika Kauffman Wheeler and her husband Jack Wheeler, co-hosts of last night’s benefit for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

I swung into one of my favorite restaurants last night, toting my computer bag, planning to nosh while working on the new Art @ Suite 100 webpage.  The owner told me that they have a “no laptops after 5” rule.  I nodded and turned back to the door, telling him, I need to work, I’ll come back another day, and dragging my burden back to the car.

Two blocks later, I saw Brenda marching down the street, head into the wind, intent on getting home.  I snagged her up; took her to feed her cat; and ten minutes later, work forgotten, we sat in front of glasses of petit sirah at District, laughing, because you-know-what had happened and Brenda had been a good sport about it.  (I won’t tell, but it involved her chair and a flight of stairs to the mezzanine at District, while I sat innocently watching.)

At that exact moment, the penny dropped; my chest tightened; and I realized that I had made it through one of the most difficult times of my life.  (Not the most difficult; no, but among the top five.)  Now the ocean spans before me.  I know that I might encounter more storms and raging wind, but a certain calm surrounds me.

It’s the first day of the twenty-eighth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.