I wear a blazer about once or twice a year. It is always at more serious client meetings because at every company I have ever worked at, suits or ties or formal wear are too stuffy, and the norm is to see people come to work wearing t-shirts or jeans or even sneakers. Yesterday, I wore one to my meeting, and because I went straight from my meeting to Publix and then to the airport, I wore it to the airport. The small thing I’ve noticed the times I wear my blazer versus times I do not is that somehow, people will always treat me a little bit better when I wear it. When on route to Florida, I was really dressed down, and most flight attendants would barely say “thank you” or “have a good day” as I exited the plane. With this freaking blazer on, everyone’s trying to greet me or say something to me.  I realize this is all anecdotal, but people really do judge and treat you by what you wear.

My dad used to complain about this when he would go to places like Macy’s or other department stores in his clothes from work (he was a glazier), and pretty much no one would give him service. But if he came in with a simple collared shirt and slacks (the rare times that happened, that is), people would rush up to him and ask him if he needed help. People treat me better when I am dressed up versus dressed down at stores, at airports – everywhere. If I just put on a little bit of makeup versus leaving the house with none on, people will smile at me more and say hi more at stores. I don’t like this, but nothing can be changed about this. This is the society in which we live, where people are just superficial without even trying to be.

I had a dream that I had to fly home for an emergency. My mother called to let me know that Ed was acting suicidal, and that he needed me to be there as soon as possible. I flew home, and on an Uber ride back to my parents’ house, I called my mom. She’s out buying food near the house, so she isn’t home with him. I went ballistic on her. “How can you leave him alone? If he’s suicidal, you cannot leave him alone by himself!” My mom gets defensive and said she had errands to run and can’t just sit with him all day. “If he gets very suicidal, then he can always call 911!” That’s probably the stupidest thing to say given the circumstances, but then again, it’s not like much of what she says in these situations tends to make sense. I got off the phone with her as the driver parks in front of the house.

My mom was walking up the hill at the same time, so we entered the house together. I immediately called out Ed’s name, but no response. I ran around to each room to look for him, and I finally reached his bedroom, where I noticed his arm sticking out from under his bed, and I screamed. I pushed the bed aside to reveal him lying with his arms and legs sprawled out, not breathing, his eyes closed. On the night table next to him is a glass of orange juice with a bottle of rat poisoning next to it. Based on the  looks of things, he had mixed the rat poisoning into his orange juice and downed it. I touched his chest to feel for a heart beat and touched his arms, and all I felt was cold as I tried to resuscitate him and yelled for our mom to call 911. But I knew it was too late.

As with the still missing Malaysia Airlines plane last year, the Germanwings plane crash was a devastation also is difficult to understand, especially given that we now know the pilot who crashed the plane suffered from depression, was suicidal, and purposely crashed the plane. Every time I see a headline about it or an article, my eyes have watered this week to think of all the innocent lives that had to die because of one man’s suffering. We can’t fully blame him because of his suffering and disease…. But can we?

I look back on my brother’s death quite often, and I think about all the ways he might have thought about killing himself that would have been “easy.” A self-inflicted gun shot wound if he could get a hold of a gun was one of them. Jumping off a bridge was another, and sadly the way he chose to go. Walking into oncoming traffic? Yes, that would be easy, but that would adversely affect the lives of the driver and whoever else was in the car. Ed was so painfully cognizant of his own pain and how it could affect other people. I’m assuming that this pilot was so blinded by his pain that he couldn’t see this the way Ed did. One of the things Ed said during a meltdown he had with my mom the year he died was, “One day, I will disappear. You won’t know where I’ve gone, so don’t come looking for me.”

I still get choked up remembering my mother telling me this after the fact.