I guess I wasn't paying close attention to Milwaukee news back in February because I seem to have missed this story. I live in Milwaukee. I just read the whole thread though and have to say that my first thought was suicide, before I even got to a post suggesting it.
It's easy for those of us who have "healthy" minds to question why in the world would anyone pick burning themselves. Or, to think this lovely woman would never do this to her family. And, but she loved her grandchildren and had gifts for them. As well as literally every other reason there is for people not to kill themselves. But, people who commit suicide, more often than not, don't have "healthy" minds and so we just have no way of comprehending the choices they make.
My mother-in-law lived a wonderful life, had a loving husband of over 40 years, financial security, two sons and five grandchildren, all of whom she loved dearly. One August morning I sent my daughter off to her first day of kindergarten and posted pictures of her in her school uniform to Facebook which my MIL commented on with how beautiful her granddaughter was and how much she loved her. This was the same day my husband (her oldest son) started his dream job and we had all seen each other that past weekend and talked about how bright the future looked. They had upcoming travel plans, my husband had his new job, and she talked about looking forward to volunteering at the kid's school again that year. That night, she left her house while my FIL was sleeping, sat down on train tracks and let a train hit and kill her.
That it was messy, graphic, horrifying, and not just life changing for her family, but also for the poor train engineer, didn't matter. That she loved her husband, her sons and her grandkids didn't matter. That she had upcoming plans didn't matter. That she probably knew she'd be dead the next morning when she made those Facebook comments didn't matter. That she knew we'd have to tell her grandchildren that she'd died and that she'd never see them again didn't matter. So yea, it doesn't make sense, but people do things that defy common sense.
By way of statistics "Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that women’s suicide rates have been on a sharp rise since 2000 — up by 50 percent — and that women are most likely to kill themselves between the ages of 45 and 64." And also, "suicide often happens without any known battle with depression or mental illness preceding it."(
https://nypost.com/2018/06/14/the-life-threatening-side-effect-of-menopause/ and
Deaths From Suicides Up Among Middle-Age Americans)
I have a feeling the gap in time was time spent thinking about what to do and getting up the courage to go through with it. Like a few other people have said, it reminds me of Cheryl DeBoer.
