Wilson: Talking about suicide never easy

I haven’t thought much about my friend Will Windley over the last 12 years, and I know I should think about him more.

This week, it was hard not to.

It was February of 2004 when Will took his life. He had lost custody of his child, and the mother planned to move out of state. He was normally the happiest guy you’d run into, but he entered a dark place none of us could expect.

Our newspaper considers suicides to be private matters, with exceptions for well-known people or unusual circumstances. When I found out Will bought a gun at a local pawn shop, and fatally shot himself in the store, I knew it was one of those circumstances.

I had to be there for my friends — and step back so a fellow reporter could do his job.

A friend, needing an outlet for her sudden grief, told me the next night I needed to investigate the judge who gave that custody order. I reminded her Will pulled the trigger. No judge could predict that behavior, and no judge would award custody knowing that behavior could result.

She blamed herself, and I disagreed there too — even while part of me was asking if I had failed Will. Would an extra Friday night playing Goldeneye have stopped him from buying that gun? It’s hard to say yes, but I can’t definitively say no.

We haven’t done many stories on local suicides since then, even when other media outlets did and readers shamed us for not following suit. So it was unusual we reported on a pair of unrelated incidents last week.

A 14-year-old girl attempted suicide — thankfully unsuccessfully — in a Clovis High School Freshman Academy bathroom, while a 24-year-old man shot himself in a Portales parking lot and died in a Lubbock hospital.

We didn’t enjoy doing either story, but our job as reporters required it. We serve our community by reflecting it, in the good times and bad.

We also had a watchdog responsibility. We don’t expect school officials to be clairvoyant or guard bathrooms to prevent suicide attempts, but they are public employees and citizens should know how they handle such incidents.

We still had the girl’s privacy in mind. We didn’t ask for a name, and identifying her as a 14-year-old girl still leaves about 25 percent of the student body at a freshman-only school.

I don’t know what she’s going through, but it’s evident plenty of people care about her — even if they’re strangers with encouraging Facebook comments.

It’s hard to know when somebody is in that dark place, but little things matter. When you ask how a friend’s doing, really ask and let them know they matter to you. Be kind to a stranger.

Educate yourself, too. Junctions, located at the Matt 25 Hope Center, is offering a pair of 90-minute seminars Nov. 3 and Nov. 18 for recognizing suicidal behaviors. You can reserve a spot by calling Junctions at 575-935-8522. It’s too late for me to help Will, but maybe I can help the next one.

Talking about suicide is never going to be easy. But little worth doing ever is.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis News Journal. He can be contacted at 575-763-3431, ext. 320, or by email:

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