Suicide is the most untimely and disturbing of endings. Even the gravity of murder can pale in comparison to taking one’s own life. The bleakness of that final decision, especially when it is made by those who have been elevated to hero status in the public eye, is hard to reconcile.
Chris Cornell’s death last week was unexpected by everyone, including those who knew him most. It was news that was hard to reconcile with, especially for adolescents of the 1990s when Soundgarden and Cornell played a pivotal role in the music of the era.
Fifty-two is not old and by all accounts, Cornell was a happily married, devoted father whose music was reaching a new, appreciative audience. It doesn’t add up. The role prescription drugs had to play will never truly be known, but somehow things got so bad inside this man’s mind that ending his existence was his only perceived way out. To leave a wife and children behind only adds to the complexity of that decision.
When someone achieves the American dream by reaching the pinnacle of material success but then chooses to take his own life, we are left with a difficult disparity to grapple with. This is one of the reasons that conspiracy theories abound following a celebrity’s death.
Robin Williams’s suicide was even more baffling when contrasted with his lighthearted public persona. It’s hard to put the two together when the extremes seem so apparent. It throws our frame of reference into disarray and gives us pause to reconsider our own notions of success and failure.
