One of my girlfriends called last night and left a message. I played it this morning. Her boyfriend killed himself. He was such a great guy. Probably one of the kindest, gentlest men I had ever known and equally manly – a commercial fisherman.

He was only in his 40s but his rheumatoid arthritis had gotten really bad over the last few years. He had an ankle replacement and picked up one of those horrible infections in the hospital that nearly killed him.

He was in constant pain. Unrelenting pain – non-stop fuel for depression. He didn’t bring it up unless you asked but you would see it in his face and the tightness of the muscles in his back and shoulders. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t do any of the activities he loved to do. My girlfriend, a saint, became the sole provider. It was hard on her. It was hard on him. Throughout it all there was the physical pain. He hated taking the pain medication but without it, the pain was too much.

I won’t go into the details but he was thoughtful to the end, leaving a note and doing “it” far from their home.

I take responsibility for managing my depression and sobriety. Yes, I take meds. Yes, I go to 12-Step meetings. Yes, to therapy, getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising blah, blah, blah.

But seriously, it really comes down to honestly answering one question: Is what I am doing right now bringing me closer or further from a depression and a drink?  Going to a sports bar and watching Michigan’s football team get clobbered by Penn State – again, is going to bring me closer to a drink. Not taking my meds is going to bring me closer to a depression. Listening to Sarah McLaughlin and pawing through old photos after I break up with a guy is going to bring me closer to both.

Once again, in the words of the philosopher Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit emergency room doctors, psychiatrists and pediatricians from asking patients  if they own or have access to a gun. Doctors would face stiff fines: $10,000 for the first offense; at least $25,000 for the second offense and up to $100,000 for the third offense.

I’m not making this up. In fact, on Tuesday the Florida Senate’s Criminal Justice Association voted 4-1 in favor of the bill. The initial draft of the bill made it a felony to quiz a patient about gun ownership and included fines of $5 million.

“What is the point?” the woman asked me in a text message.

Instantly a drum-roll of trite responses popped into my head: “You’re so smart and help so many people.” “With all you’ve been through you are such an inspiration to others.” “You have so much to live for.”

True, but those responses are monkey dung, all of them.  The point is, I don’t know what “the point” is for this woman. What I do know is that it is okay to not know  ”the point.” The lack of “a point”  does not mean there is no point. It simply means you don’t know what “the point” is right now. And that is okay. I don’t need to know everything all the time. 

I’m not sure I know what any of this means or if it means anything at all.

I am on vacation. I am back home – a home where I have not lived for decades. Still, it feels more like home than any other place I have ever lived. It’s in southwest Michigan, about 30 minutes from “The Big Lake” – Lake Michigan.

There are memories here. Some good. Some very bad. Many, many memories – I am sure. I am trying very hard to remember. For some reason – and my therapist has many – I have very, very little memory of my childhood. Many of the memories I still have stir up “icky” feelings. That’s the best way to describe them. Icky.

There are about 33,000 suicides in the United States every year.

There are about 18,000 homicides in the United States every year.

Now, ask yourself this: If there are nearly twice as many suicides than homicides, how come I don’t hear about more suicides in the news?

Because the media doesn’t think it’s appropriate to cover suicides. We don’t want to cause any more anguish to the friends and family of people who kill themselves. (Imagine that, the media is concerned about causing anguish!)

That’s the unspoken rule in newsrooms across the land – suicide is personal and private and covering it would cause more pain. Unless the person who killed herself is famous, there is no news value. But homicide is fair game. Doesn’t matter how obscure you are. If you’re dead and somebody killed you – it’s news.

I have been thinking a lot about my trip to Venice…Louisiana.

I went to Louisiana with a photographer about six weeks ago to cover the oil spill. We heard the action was in Venice. We bought a map and asked for directions because even with a map I had managed to get us hopelessly lost a day earlier in a small town called Houma.

“When you get to Belle Chase you take 23 and go straight,” we were told. “When the road ends, that’s Venice.”

Venice is in Plaquemines Parish, a 70-mile long peninsula that hangs off the toe of Lousiana. The first 30 miles or so seemed pleasant enough. Nice brick houses, convenience stores, churches, schools – the usual small town stuff. Then things started getting…interesting.

Four years and four days ago was the last time the lights went out.

That was my last major clinical depression: Four years and four days ago.

I got up at about 4:30 am. I didn’t wake up because I wasn’t actually asleep. I got up – meaning I got out of bed. Took my dog to the dog park and sat on a picnic table. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I wasn’t exactly crying because crying takes emotional exertion and I had run out of that. It was more like just water dripping from the corner of each eye.

I am a clean & sober recovering alcoholic/addict but I made one last desperate attempt to make myself feel better.

I am sick about the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince. I close my eyes and say a prayer for her 12-year-old sister, who found Phoebe in a stairwell leading to the the family’s second-floor apartment in South Hadley, Massachusetts on January 14. I cannot imagine the depth of the family’s sorrow and anger, and I don’t want to try.

We don’t know much about the bullying Phoebe endured at South Hadley High School in the months before her death, and we know almost nothing about the nine teens charged with a smorgasbord of shocking crimes against her.

We all want those details. But I want more. I want to know how those nine teens reacted to their arrests. I want to know if they feel a shred of regret and remorse. If the teens made statement to detectives, I want to hear their recollection of what happened. I want to hear the tone of their voices. I want to see their body language.

This will come as a shock to some of you, but many journalists do have a moral compass. Occasionally, we take one out and see if anyone remembers how to use it.

These newsroom debates are passionate and I have been at the center of many. For years, I argued that omitting details of sex crimes because “some readers might be not want to read about that over their Cheerios” misrepresented the true level of brutality against women in America.

I mean, come on, the music industry turned misogyny into entertainment a long time ago. Why not throw in a little reality for balance? I am not arguing for gratuitous details. However, very often the word “rape” does not capture the true horror of many of these crimes.

The same is true for media coverage of suicide. There is an unspoken rule among editors throughout the land that covering a suicide — especially details of a suicide — is morally wrong. It unnecessarily inflicts  more pain upon the loved ones left behind. They argue that suicide is not newsworthy unless a celebrity kills himself or the suicide affects the public — for instance, when  tortured soul jumps off an overpass during rush hour and brings traffic to a halt.

I disagree.