Summer's Gone - Part Two

In my previous blog on this subject I noted how sad I get at this time of year because the best part of the year is fading fast as it gives way to cold weather. This weekend we are getting a little taste of what's to come.

However, we also got a bit of good news to relieve the dread as we have early figures relating to the road deaths statistics for the Summer. We are told that in the Community of Valencia the number of people who died this year has fallen by 50%. Last year 34 people lost their lives which resulted in thirty-four families in grief, which possibly might mean for the rest of those people's lives. This year, while even one person lost to death on the road is one too many, we lost 17 fewer people which resulted in 17 fewer funerals and 17 families that were not affected negatively and unnecessarily.

We see life sometimes very strangely. When a person decides to end his life through suicide and he leaves us a note saying why, we get sad and a little angry. We say that what that person did was selfish and uncaring for his family. We are left with a stigma for the rest of all time because our loved one hung himself, or shot or drowned or cut himself to bleed out. Very sad

However, take that same individual who dies in a hospital as a result of lung cancer that is directly tied to his 30 cigarettes-a-day smoking habit and there's no stigma associated with that.

Perhaps he drove his car quite regularly while under the influence of drink or drugs and this time he ran into a wall or a tree that wouldn't get out of his way and he died. Both of these examples are suicides, they are perfectly good methods of ending one's life, the only difference is we don't leave a note, so therefore no stigma.

I noticed a package of cigarettes that says, "Smoking Kills" with a picture of a young woman who had just spit up blood. I am absolutely amazed that anyone would buy a product with such a warning on the cover.

Driving while under the influence of anything that will impair our judgement is an attempt to commit suicide, and it is also an attempt at murder. We don't even care who we kill, just as long as we have that drink or hit of drugs. That makes the person at fault deeply flawed.

The good news continued that loss of life throughout the country during the Summer dropped from last year's 253 to 226. Very encouraging!

Let's all try our best to make this year's annual numbers decrease by a meaningful amount. It's too late for zero deaths but there's still time to make an impressionable decrease over last year, but it's not too late to aim for zero for 2018.

We can do it, Yes we Can!

Copyright (c) 2017
Eugene Carmichael