“everything to live for”

We are often confronted with the statement “My (loved one) could not have died by suicide, they had everything to live for”, when we discuss that manner of death with family and friends.

I came across a bit of information I thought was interesting and that speaks to that point. George Eastman (the Eastman of Eastman Kodak) died by self inflicted gun shot wound in 1932. He was a man described as “a man of power, generosity, and self-determination” and one of the richest men in America at the time. Talk about someone who had “everything to live for”.

However, on closer examination of his life and psyche at the time of his death he was a typical “case” (depression, physical illness, recent losses), but it wasn’t all that obvious at the time. Even someone with “everything to live for” can die by suicide. It does not diminish them in the least, as someone said recently: “they are leaping from their own inferno”.