Malachi Ritscher's Nov. 3 protest suicide in Chicago has given folks here a lot to think about.
Is the act of burning yourself to death to protest a war inherently crazy?
Does such an act have meaning independent of the alleged mental state of the actor?
Do those who knew the dead man retain ownership over memories of him? Does he become a "martyr"? Does he become "universal"?
From where does the meaning -- if any -- in his final act arise? How is that meaning determined?
Here's a different look at suicide.
On Halloween 2002, a business undergraduate and lacrosse player at the University of Minnesota disappeared. His body was found days later in the Mississippi River. Police ruled the death accident or suicide and closed the case.
Now the investigation is open again, and the police chief opened it with an apology to the young man's parents.
Not an expression of condolence. That would have been, "I'm sorry your son may have been murdered."
This was, "I'm sorry. Your son may have been murdered."
Sorry, because the imputation of suicide was thought to have added to the family's pain.
For this family (as for others) the idea that a loved one killed himself or died in a meaningless accident was unacceptable. Literally refusing to accept it, they hired a private eye. They got a homicide sergeant and, eventually, a new chief of police, to see things their way.
Perhaps this take on suicide dichotomizes the grieving process and the search for meaning. Grief may be delayed pending the assignment of blame to another, an other.
Sadly, some murder victims' families have found that assignment of blame, and even pursuit of and realization of vengeance, could not bring closure, and could not determine death's meaning.
And in Chicago, one of the several continuing efforts to locate meaning in Malachi's intentional death by self-immolation will go on tomorrow evening, as a small group of folks meets for a potluck to discuss what's next: I Heard You, Malachi!
Tags: Malachi Ritscher, Chicago, Minneapolis, suicide, grief, grieving, murder.
Bus Driver called pretty early this morning. He was in between routes and had parked the bus and was sipping tea from a thermos. I wanted his thoughts on Carhart because that's the only thing I cared about at that moment, but I couldn't get more than, "Wow," out of him. Instead, he started describing what he was looking at, and what he was thinking about what he was looking at. (Sleepnessness and science-illiteracy warning: If any working scientist reads this and goes, "That doesn't make any sense," it's my mistake in rendering the conversation. I hadn't slept, and there's no way I'll ever understand even basic concepts such as refraction and reflection.) 
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