Loss

It's a Wednesday, and I am in an Internet cafe far from my apartment and thousands of miles from home. My spot is along the right aisle, on the left hand side, three chairs from the front.I pull out the chair and try to tune out the chaos of Naples. The train station a block away draws tens of thousands of people... and this cafe is different from the deep downtown where I spend my everyday.I pull open my email and read.The chaos doesn't die down. The people keep walking on the str It's a Wednesday, and I am in an Internet cafe far from my apartment and thousands of miles from home. My spot is along the right aisle, on the left hand side, three chairs from the front.
I pull out the chair and try to tune out the chaos of Naples. The train station a block away draws tens of thousands of people... and this cafe is different from the deep downtown where I spend my everyday.
I pull open my email and read.
The chaos doesn't die down. The people keep walking on the street. The ceiling fans still move, slowly churning the air in quiet circles. But, for a moment, my world stops. My heart catches in my throat, and I find myself crying.
A man who lived just across the street from my childhood home for years, who opened his home when his daughters invited me over to play Sonic, just committed suicide.
I don't know him well. They were divorced, she stayed in the house and remarried, and he moved away. I was little for many of the years he was there, and I don't know many people well. Regardless of the reasons, all the excuses that youth can give me are still excuses in my eyes.
Maybe if I had been a better kid... something different would have happened. I could have befriended his daughters better, known him better, been a better neighbor. I've been suicidal. I know what it feels to walk the line between life and death, and I've been closer to death far more times than I can count. And maybe I could have helped. 
I can't now. But maybe I can help the people left behind... who must be feeling pain and guilt far more than I feel.
I can't go to the funeral. I'm a missionary thousands of miles away, and yet I want to be there so much more than here. I write a short message to my family and the family across the street... and like that my time is up.
...