There was an organizational meeting about an event that happens, no joke, on April 1st. There will be a main speaker, Dan Gottlieb, as well as a panel about such tender subjects as addiction, suicide, abuse, and mental illness. Each of us sitting in the circle was given a piece of ice, which we were instructed to hold against our wrist. The very spot that often holds the secret of internal anguish. Sixty seconds later we spoke about the effect of that cold place, and what our reactions were to dealing with it. 

"I'd do anything to stop it."

"Altruism went out the window. It was about finding a way to end it."

The first edition was a year ago, and the effects were healing. One take away I had was that people do not commit suicide, they die from it. It is not about freedom, or choice. When you are in that much pain, more than a cube of ice, you will do anything to escape it. People brought their tangled fears, and hidden bruises, unsure if they would bolt at the first intermission. Yet they stayed, and found acceptance and faces to ease the buried agony. 

There is good reason for burying it, mind you. A therapist once told me that people often don't remember abuse for a long time, simply because they are not ready to see it. Mercy in action.