Helpless...

Helpless.

That's how I felt last week when a close friend of mine from my hometown in South Carolina called with the kind of bad news you hope to never receive.

“Are you sitting down?” Liz — who is more like a younger sister than just a friend — asked me. I knew it had to be bad. The last time she and her sister, Wendy, had called was when their mother, who had been like a mother to me for years, had died.

“I wanted you to hear this from me before it started coming out on Facebook,” she said, her voice quivering. “Dave committed suicide.”

Dave and I had been friends for many years before I left South Carolina to move to Texas, and, right before I moved we had been roommates for more than a year. He was, without a doubt, one of the kindest and generous people I had ever met.

I sat on the edge of my bed in silence, shocked by what Liz was telling me.

Apparently, Dave had developed migraine headaches sometime after I left the state. Despite the best efforts of modern medicine, a reason — and, subsequently, a treatment — for the migraines couldn't be found. Dave, like so many other Americans, was stuck in medical limbo, hoping for some sort of breakthrough that might diagnose and treat his condition.

Dave had worked at Westinghouse Electric — the same plant my father had worked at while I was growing up — for many, many years. However, as anyone with sever migraines will tell you, the pain and frequency of the attacks had become debilitating, and he had lost his job.

No one has been able to tell me for sure when the downward spiral that ended with my friend taking his life actually began, but they all agree on one thing: never in a million years did any of us think he would take such drastic measures.

I've received dozens of text messages from my friends describing the funeral and how tastefully it was handled, telling me that at least Dave's suffering is over. We all shake our heads and tell one another there's no way we could have seen it coming.

However, deep in our hearts we know that's not completely true.

I saw Dave for the last time about three years ago, when my daughter and I took a trip to South Carolina so she could see the small farm where I had grown up and meet the friends who played such a vital role in forming who her father is today.

Liz took us by to see Dave and several other friends, and we played a few games on the Wii and laughed and joked about the things we had done in our youth. The years had taken a definite toll on us both, but for the most part he was still the Dave I knew and missed.

I can't stop asking myself one question: If I had been there, would I have recognized the warning signs, and, ultimately, could I have prevented his death?

Everyone tells me there's nothing I could have done, but I can't help but feel like they are simply trying to comfort me. People grow apart sometimes, distanced by time, miles and everyday life. We have disagreements — and God knows Dave and I had our share of those — and avoid each others' calls, but in the back of our mind we always think there's time.

Maybe, in the end, how I feel isn't so much about how Dave died, but more about the fact he's now gone and I will never see my friend again. Either way, it has served as something of a wake-up call for me, a reminder to say the things that need to be said now, instead of waiting months and, eventually, years.

Suicide is, and always will be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's never the answer, if for no other reason that what it does to the people we love and care about. If you know someone who has become withdrawn and is showing the early-warning signs for suicide, don't chance it. Talk to them, and, if need be, see to it they get help.

If you don't, I fear you'll someday feel like I do right now.

Helpless.