Kill Your Child... Commit Suicide? It Has Happened Again....

I've never considered killing my child. But, I did consider committing suicide - many times. In fact, when my third daughter was stricken with cancer at the age of one and one half years old, I prayed to god to kill me and heal her. 


I would have traded my life for her health in a moment.


Alas, some prayers are not answered.


There are a very many parents with handicapped or extremely ill children. I think it might be natural that these parents want to kill themselves; I can't imagine that the thought of killing themselves never crosses their mind. Like I said, I've never considered killing my child, but killing myself if it could possibly make things better? Of course... In a flash.


Once again, in Japan, another parent of a handicapped darling child, innocent to the world, has killed their child and attempted suicide. The murder of the child was, unfortunately successful. The suicide attempt was a failure.


Japan Today reports in Man attempts suicide after apparently hanging disabled daughter in public restroom:

Police said Monday that a man was found bleeding from his abdomen and his daughter hanged in a public restroom in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.

According to police, the 54-year-old man, who has been named as Ikuro Kenmochi, was seriously injured and his disabled daughter, 9-year-old Saki, was dead when they were discovered in the restroom in Oba Castle Park shortly after 11 a.m. Sunday, Fuji TV reported.

Police believe Kenmochi attempted to commit suicide by cutting open his abdomen after hanging his daughter. Investigators said that Kenmochi sent an email to his wife shortly before the incident in which he told her he was worried about their daughter’s future, Fuji reported.

As always, with this sort of thing, many people have their opinions. Unfortunately, as with most things, judging from the comments section of the original article, the average opinion is benighted, to say the least.

I am greatly saddened for the child and the family. I feel for their pain and suffering. Of course, I don't know exactly what they went through, but I know what it is like to have to face the guilt that I might be responsible for ruining someones life and the fear for that poor, innocent person's future. I know what raising a handicapped child involves.

The comment section of this article, though, is filled with the usual noise and foolish inexperience of people who would do much better to keep their ignorant comments to themselves. 

The typical response was something like this:

"Poor child. Instead of caring about her, he was only thinking about himself."

Astounding. Yeah. For one, we don't know what went on with this child and the handicap. But we do know that the father and the child's mother cared for her for nearly ten years. We also do not know the condition of neither father and mother. As if those who would criticize the father would know about the guilt and suffering this man felt and the difficulty this child and the family went through over this last nearly decade.


Who can judge if this man hadn't gone insane or was at the end of his tether? 

Though there was, though, one intelligent comment... I could tell by this comment that the person who wrote it has experienced first-hand something like the tragedy of a handicapped loved one. They wrote:

"Poor child. Instead of caring about her, he was only thinking about himself."?...

That's a pretty bold statement from somebody who (I assume) knew neither the man or the girl in question. There's a saying about walking a mile in someones shoes before criticising them....

Yes. Walk a mile in a man's shoes. 

Wendy Rogers at 14... Now she's 18-years-old

We all need to consider this wise old statement (me too!) more before we criticize people.... Especially when it comes to pain and human suffering.

I've written about my own experiences here:

Wishing, Hoping, Believing

"Who are you to make such claims?" Complaints Bloggers (I) Receive

I hope that you and your loved ones never have to go through this. I pray that I don't have to again. To tell the truth, I don't know how I survived the first time...

At Narita Temple on 05/05/12

I'm glad I did. My daughter and I spent a wonderful day at Narita Temple a few weeks ago.

Finally, in my daily notes (Please refer to: How I Became a Kind and Patient Father and You Can Too!), here is one of the top 5 things I write everyday:

"Thank you God for all the wonderful things I have and am about to receive."

You folks have a wonderful day. And thank God for the wonderful things you have... For many of us do not realize just how good we have it right now.

Holidays and In-Laws Driving You Crazy? "Find Your Center"

Just came back from a vacation and wanted to relate a story that happened when I just arrived on a southern Pacific island. 

Buddha on Tumon in Guam

From past experience, and my feelings of irritation, I knew that at the moment when we arrived on the island, my in-laws might drive me crazy. You know, it was the typical story with old people; forgetting things; worrying about unimportant nonsense; taking 15 minutes to do something that most people could do in 20 seconds....


We arrived at the island airport after midnight. Everyone was tired and sleepy. We checked into to the hotel bus service which would drive us all to the hotel for free. 


We had two luggage carriers with three pieces of luggage on each. I received the six luggage tags from the limousine service to put on our bags for the bus.  I started putting the luggage tags on the three pieces of luggage on my cart and handed three luggage tags to them to put on the three bags on their cart. I finished attaching the tags. I stood up and, of course, there was some confusion at their cart. The tag numbers were wrong (?) or were they? No! There weren't enough tags.

Oh Lordy! I thought, "How hard could it be to properly attach three tags to three pieces of luggage." I walked over to calmly investigate. Sure enough, they were two tags short. 


"What happened to the three tags I just gave you?" I asked.


"Oh? We put two of them on your luggage." I rolled my eyes. I looked at my cart and sure enough, they had put two of their tags on my cart's luggage. Why? Hell if I know. For 1/2 a second steam came out my ears.... I caught myself and I smiled. Then I removed the tags from my luggage and put them on theirs... I won't go into details of how they started using a pen to alter the numbers on the tags for some reason. Once again a simple 30 second process took over fifteen minutes of time.


I turned back to the nice young man at the service counter. He said, "First time in Guam?"


"Nope!" I answered. Smiling I said, "First time with the in-laws and the entire family so all I have to do is try to be patient and keep calm...." I scrunched up my face and whispered to the guy like I was going nuts and said, "BECAUSE, BLESS THEIR HEARTS, SOMETIMES THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY!"

It was then and there, the Great Buddha who lived within the heart and soul of that young man came out and spread wisdom to me he put his hands together and smiled knowingly at me and said,


"Find your center, man!"


I really laughed. What wisdom. That's right. "Find your center, man!" All I had to do was to find my center and take it easy. I couldn't allow these things to irritate me... Oh, and trust that there were many things they did that irritated me. But, by remembering what that young man said,  I was able to stay cool (for the most part) and chill out. I was able to expect these things would happen and so, when they did, they didn't bother me.


Fifteen minutes to decide whether or not it is cold or hot enough so that they need to take a sweater with them when we are driving in our own car anyway? No problem. Calling a hotel to make special dinner reservations for a dinner that always gets sold out yet calling the wrong restaurant? No sweat (I knew I should have called myself anyway). Wanting to take a hour to shop in a clothes store that doesn't seem to have 50 pieces of wardrobe in the entire store that is the size of 1/2 a convenience store? Sure. Knock yourselves out.


Hell, I wasn't going anywhere.


Another thing that helped me to have a better and more relaxing time was to write in my notes as my daily goals every day as my number one priority was:


1) I am relaxed & patient & having fun 12/23/11


I wrote that as my #1 priority goal first thing when I woke up every morning while on vacation. It helped my subconscious to remember it and it helped me to forget about work and problems at the office.  

  


I also wrote at the top of my notes every morning,


"In Guam. Find your center." It helped me to relieve stress and have more fun. I think whether you  re in a south Pacific island or not, writing your goals and finding your center can help you to be happier and more productive and stress-free. Try it everyday in 2012.


NOTE: Write down your goals everyday for a better, more successful and happier you. http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2011/06/pocket-notebooks-secret-of-millionaires.html