“I called her and I said, ‘Hey, this is Jimmy Doohan. Scotty of Star Trek. I’m doing a convention in Indianapolis, and I want to see you there.'” he explained. “I saw her. Boy, I’m telling you — I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was definitely suicide. Somebody had to help her, somehow. And, obviously, she wasn’t going to the right people.”
Doohan told the woman about each surrounding area convention (and some in nearby states) that he would be at and said he wanted to see her at each.
“That went on for two or three years, maybe 18 times,” he said. “And all I did was talk positive things to her. And then all of a sudden — nothing. I didn’t hear anything, and I had no idea what was really happening to her because I never really saved her address. Eight years later, I get a letter saying, ‘I do want to thank you so much for what you did for me, I just got my master’s degree in electronic engineering.'”
Watch James recount it here [2:02] | Article Source here
Check in on the people you love. You never know what someone is going through and just being there can help way more than you might know. Trust me as someone who doesn’t have anyone there.
Live long and prosper, friends 🖖
2 things.
@SneakyWeasel@lemmy.world has a point. I used to work at a call center a long time ago and someone called in to tell us they were committing suicide. I didn’t get the call but I was close to the guy who did. The person who called was someone who had been abandoned by their family and had nothing and no one. They were living on their own for years and had exhausted themselves to the point of wanting to die. However they had a desperate need to be remembered by someone so they called the only place they ever regularly called. No one in their life but needed someone to know they existed so they called the one regular number they knew. Does it make sense? No. Not really. But that’s pain. Not everything is going to make sense.I can identify with this if I’m honest. I don’t want to live but no one really knows who I am or would notice if I died. I’m not at the point of phoning up strangers point but I get it. The isolation and loneliness hurts more than anything else.
Not all suicide notes are obvious. I sent one to someone in the past and they had no idea. I also sent another message to a DnD player I’ve been playing with for years just saying I loved him and he thought that was a suicide note. It might have been a super obvious one. It might have been something more subtle that James just recognized. Or it could have been just an out-and-out suicide note. We don’t know for sure. Most suicide notes though are not that obvious so I’m inclined to lean towards James just recognizing it after all the hell he went through.