Death of a Flight Nurse

I'm still completely numb. Sunday night I went to bed early to finally get caught up on sleep. One of the managers called at 10:30 PM and said there was a stand off at Marc's house. Marc has been with our flight program for many years, and I think a nurse since who knows when. He was a great guy. He came from the ICU, was occasionally responsible for driving some of the medics mad with his ICU detail. He was one of those nurses that was both great to work with, and a bit of a nag. His nickname, lovingly given to him by Sarah, was Squishim. (His last name was Tishim) Through the years we went through his first divorce after being married for 20 plus years. They never had any kids. He then married a nurse from the unit who was quite a bit younger than him, and they started a family. We were glad to see this for 2 reasons:
1st Marc really was great with kids. On PICU runs he could make the goofy faces that would make kids smile. (Compared to my goofy faces which usually made kids cry, and other nurses nauseated.)
2nd reason we were glad Marc had kids was pay-back. Marc always made fun of us parents for being over tired, stressed, you know the fun of little kids......Well then Marc had kids of his own, and started saying the same things we did, about being up all night, clinic appointments etc.......
In the last couple years, their marriage went South. The divorce became bitter. We were on Marc's side, but let's be honest, it's hard to know with a divorce as to who is trying to screw who. We knew that the stress was taking a toll on Marc, he was talking about quitting, or retiring, and was working with HR. He would come in, and bring the kids, they would draw on the dry erase boards, help us around the ambulances. They were such great kids.

0150 hours, Call from dispatch, The SWAT team stormed Marc's house. They stated 3 dead right away. Marc killed his kids ages 4 and 8, and then took his own life.

What can I say? This is the third suicide in our department in 3 years. I know in my heart, that people were talking to Marc, trying to make sure he was OK. He knew what to say and what not to say. I really do believe that everyone thought he was going to be OK. The divorce was to be final this week. He could finally move forward in life. God he really had us convinced it was going to be OK.

The kids.....Marc, how in the hell could you do that? How can you take the lives of your kids? You Bastard, you used to run around preaching people's free-will, and then you take away their chances to choose the kind of life they would have. I'm so angry about this. I can't envision any of this.

So, here we sit, empty and hurt, numb, and confused. What could have been going through his mind. A community divided. This is just too much. There has been much local media coverage especially with the Virginia Tech thing. Some of the media have focused on our flight serive, because Marc had been involved in public relations shoots, so his image was on file.

Forgiveness will be tough on this one.

A side note, The Chantix was worked wonderfully, though the temptation is there to smoke, I'm now officially over 2 weeks smoke free.