That, in essence, is the catastrophe of suicide for those who survive: not only the loss of someone, but the loss of the chance to persuade that person to act differently, the loss of the chance to connect. There is no one to whom one so yearns to connect as a person who has committed suicide. “If we had only known” is the plea of the parents of a suicide, people who rack their minds trying to figure out what failing of their love could have allowed such a thing to come and surprise them, trying to think what they should have said.
