Suicide takes more courage than one might expect. There’s a presumption that quitting on life is throwing your hands up and terminating yourself on a whim. Underlying this belief is that those who are suicidal could not cope with life’s ups and downs. You’re one of the unique few who gave up, not just during the trial of your life, but in the fact of life. I disagree. I’ve walked along this edge of death more times than I care to admit. My life’s ups and downs have been hard to navigate.  I’ve lost everything – more than once. What’s everything? Jobs, family, friends, hope. What do YOU do when you’ve lost hope? I know what I do – turn my back on life. Risk it. And, sometimes, try to snuff it out to kill the pain. One reason I am still alive is that I’ve failed to seal the deal. How do you successfully terminate your life? It’s rather easy – there are a million ways to die. But when you’re hurt inside, and you’re scared, and you’re unsure, taking the final step in your life is one of the most difficult endeavors. It’s one of the most arduous voyages I have ever embarked on. I’m no stranger to success, ironically. In fact, it is the meteoric fall from success that most often drives me to the brink of life. It’s curious to me, then, why I have failed so far to end what I perceive as a painful journey to nowhere: Life. I haven’t had the courage. It takes more than commitment to terminate life before it is ready. It takes a willingness to give up the soul – the only awareness available to you. My apologies to those who have lost loved ones to suicide. How excruciating the pain of loss and absence must be. I write to you as much as I write to the souls wavering on their commitment to life. Bringing forth the end is not driven by cowardice or lack of fortitude. To me, someone who has wanted to end life and been unable to do it, suicide is a powerful reclamation of an experience that has, for too long, squeezed out every iota of joy or happiness or self-love the soul can muster. There is dignity in death by your own hand. The shame I feel to have failed in suicide – let that be a clarion call to all those who pass judgment. I failed because I was scared to end my awareness. I’m not unlike those who withstand abuse, too scared to fight back; or those who hang on while incarcerated, crippled and maimed, or spurned and ostracized, persisting because it’s harder to disconnect with life than to remain plugged into their despair and disarray. I’ve been scared to life, if you will. I do not advocate suicide. I do not cling to life either. I merely can’t disown it. I haven’t been strong enough. Those who have had the courage deserve more consideration for their strength than the living give them. We say to the dead, “May you rest in power.” The successful, long-living leaders among us are not the only ones who have taken life by the reins. These folks will let death happen to them. Those who commit suicide, on the other hand, happen to death.  Read More From This Writer All Post Art Books & Poems Business Column Community Community News Education Entertainment español Food & Culture Health Interviews Media Military & Veterans Music Peace People Politics Sports Technology ON SUICIDE August 26, 2024/No Comments Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Read More… Read More SHIFT HAPPENS August 26, 2024/No Comments I am the son of a Panamanian father and Honduran mother. I never met my black father, but he’s left… Read More AN OBITUARY July 31, 2024/2 Comments I didn’t know my father before he died, and I didn’t care, really, until I learned of his death. Even… Read More

I am the son of a Panamanian father and Honduran mother. I never met my black father, but he’s left a lasting imprint, not only on my skin, but on my perceptions of race, family, and fatherhood. My mom, on the other hand, is white as Canilla rice, but every bit of a Latina. And she’ll tell you that until I was 3 years old, I spoke nothing but Spanish. Well, shift happens.  My mom has always been the family interpreter. My grandmother was the first Peraza to arrive in the United States in 1965. She spoke no English. She’s eighty-two now, and she still speaks very little English. Why? One reason is that she brought my mom to the US in 1967, and my mom learned English quickly, helping the family adapt. To this day, my mom is the go-between that makes US society accessible for my grandmother.  All this came to mind last week, when I interviewed a Spanish-speaking childcare provider. As a childcare advocate for Western New York Child Care Action Team, I was asked to document the provider’s language access issues. I learned that this small business owner hoped to expand her staff by hiring a Spanish-speaking childcare professional to help care for Latino children. The problem was, the professional she wanted to hire spoke very little English, and the training materials – the training itself – was done in English. The provider, who speaks limited English herself, was forced to translate for her colleague, which raises an important question: Why isn’t the training in Spanish? I wish I could tell you that I conducted that interview in Spanish. The truth is, I’m out of practice. I rarely converse in Spanish, and since the stakes are high in childcare advocacy, I made a wise decision: I called my mom. With the provider’s permission, I invited my mom to help facilitate the interview.  Any of the Peraza’s in Buffalo will tell you that my mom and I are oil and water – we don’t mix. We’re both Aries and spend 90 percent of our time butting heads. But for 45 miraculous minutes we collaborated on the interview, making sure to document the story with care and compassion. It was one of the greatest experiences I have had with my mom.  I spend a lot of time amplifying my blackness, but today I acknowledge that being Latino is at the core of identity too. I read and write Spanish – my first publication as a young scholar was a Spanish essay on Nicolas Guillen’s poem, “Sensemaya.” Now it’s time to extend my fluency to the spoken word. I want to honor my Honduran mom by speaking my native tongue like I did when I was Read More From This Writer All Post Art Books & Poems Business Column Community Community News Education Entertainment español Food & Culture Health Interviews Media Military & Veterans Music Peace People Politics Sports Technology SHIFT HAPPENS August 26, 2024/No Comments Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Read More… Read More AN OBITUARY July 31, 2024/1 Comment I didn’t know my father before he died, and I didn’t care, really, until I learned of his death. Even… Read More