Don't Worry, Be Grumpy

The Last Question

I received a call late in the afternoon that a Buddhist family was on its way to see me after finishing interviews with the police. That morning, they had woken up to a parent’s worst nightmare. They found their seventeen-year-old son hanging on the end of a rope.

Often suicides among the young are totally unpredictable. The boy had many friends and showed no signs of depression. He appeared happy at school, where he was about to take the university entrance exams. He was expected to perform very well. There was not the slightest forewarning of what he was about to do.

The parents were struggling with guilt, asking themselves repeatedly what they could have done, or said, to prevent this. Fortunately, Buddhism doesn’t exaggerate personal mistakes and nurture them into the devouring monster that is guilt. I could easily reassure them that they deserved no blame. Such suicides happen to the most caring and diligent of parents. They accepted this.

Next, they expressed a level of concern that I can only describe as “terrified” over what would happen to their son after such a death. Being Buddhists, they accepted reincarnation. They had also heard that those who commit suicide are reborn in hell.

It was trauma enough to witness the suicide of their son, but imagining him in such terrible pain afterward was adding torment upon torture. Whether or not we believe in life after death, we all like to hear that our recently deceased loved ones “have gone on to a happier place.” Imagine what it must be like to believe that they are now in a far worse place, an indescribably worse place.

Knowing that their son would have been taking his university entrance exams soon, I asked the parents how many subjects he was to take and how many papers in each subject. The parents were confused about why I was asking such a question at this time. Out of respect for me, they replied that he was to take four subjects with two papers in each. Then I asked how many questions, on average, in each paper. They replied that there were about eight questions per paper.

“That makes a total of sixty-four questions to get into an Australian university,” I said. “What would happen if a student answers sixty-three of those questions perfectly correct but makes a total mess of the very last question? Would that student get accepted into university?”

The parents smiled as they said, “Yes, of course.” They had understood the metaphor.

Their son does not get denied a happy rebirth solely because of his suicide, no more than a student is denied a place at university solely because he gave a wrong answer to the last question on the exam. Their son was a very kind, good boy. He had given so many excellent answers to the tests of life that he well deserved a happy rebirth.