Depression kills

I recently renewed a friendship with a college friend, thanks to Facebook.  We hadn't been in contact in over twenty years.  Yesterday, I understand, he died by his own hand, a victim of lifelong depression.

He was not my closest friend, but that was more my fault than his.  I got on nerves in college, and set teeth on edge.  I was depressed, you see, and that made for an unpleasant personality.  My friend Nick, though, didn't allow it to put him off entirely.

I guess I understand now that he understood me better than I did myself.  He recognized in my the struggles he also faced.

The struggles that, at 43, finally did him in.

It scares the crap out of me to think that a man that so many loved, that so many relied on, that so many thought of as happy and kind, should succumb to this disease.  What about the rest of us?  If Nick fell, what can the rest of us hope for?

This is not my best day, so forgive me.