I try to be compassionate but ...

... some people just have no regard at all for others.

There was a fatality at work today. A suicide. It happens. Someone jumped in front of a speeding commuter train. Obviously, he wanted to die. He'd had all he could stand of this Life. I can't even imagine the kind of emotional pain that would drive a person to take his or her own Life. I feel sorry, not for the person who was turned to a fine mist by an 80 mph, 2000 ton missile, but for the loved ones who are now left to mourn, and perhaps to spend forever asking "why?"

But here's where my compassion really fades: This person chose to kill himself in front of a train, at the height of the afternoon rush hour. Of course, no train movements were permitted in either direction for five hours while the police and others collected widely scattered body parts and hosed the gore off the front of the locomotive. Tens of thousands of homebound commuters were stranded downtown. Some trains were diverted to alternate destinations, but the accident - and I use that word in a general sense, for it was clearly no accident - occured on the busiest route in Toronto. It may well be the busiest commuter rail corridor in Canada.

So you've had enough, have you? And you want to die? Then why not take a bottle of pills and crawl into a closet somewhere? Why cause such a great inconvenience to people whose only concern is getting home to their families after work? You inconsiderate, selfish, son-of-a-bitch!!

And what of the engine crew who had to witness it? Two men suffered the horror of sitting, watching helplessly as the train they were operating struck and killed a human being. I know. I've been in their place. The sound of it - a kind of dull thud and then a rattle as skull and bones pass beneath the floor of the locomotive - is one I will never forget. It happened about six years ago. It was dreadful!

But you're dead. It doesn't matter to you, does it? Thousands of people were affected. Thousands! And your poor family! They will have to go on somehow. Oh, how they must hate you for what you've done.