RIP Chris Dudley, 1966 - 2012

The day after Thanksgiving, the Deputy Director of the US Marshals Service called Fairfax County police from his home two neighborhoods over, and told them they'd better come.  When they did, they found he had committed suicide.

Chris was 46.  It's not quite fair to say he was a friend of mine, as we'd met only once through the good graces of Kevin, a colleague at work, through whom I had the privilege of inviting Chris to come earlier this year as a motivational speaker on leadership to senior-graded employees in Finance Division.  But for the hours we spent that day, both at the office and over lunch, and then in the e-mails we exchanged warmly over the months since, I allowed myself the illusion that we had made a connection.

In Chris I saw someone my own age who was similarly possessed of the idea that people deserve good leadership in their jobs, and who had, through the strengths of his own leadership skills, risen to very admirable heights in a similar industry.  We shared a similar dry sense of humor over brisket and iced teas at Hill Country with Kevin, and while he sighed about the difficulties he was having in finding good people for key jobs at work, he didn't sound any differently about his stresses than any of a number of other people I eat lunch with.  In my last e-mail exchange with him, I signed off with an invitation, the next time he was downtown, to meet for more Texas BBQ.  He replied along the lines of how much he could really use some good BBQ.  But that was all.  Kevin told me later, Chris had talked with his sister that Friday afternoon and was due to meet her for dinner at six.  By four, he was dead.

When our CFO announced Chris' death at the morning staff meeting on the 28th I was stunned.  I sent a message to our teams to let them know, and to implore them to seek help if ever they found themselves feeling like they had no other choice.  I also pulled up his online obituary and saw with dismay photos of him with his young daughter, whom the article described as "the love of his life."  Our lives were to draw, uncannily, closer still:  On the night of December 5th, Sarah mentioned that at Girls on the Run that day, they had made cards for their teammate Abby, whose dad had died recently.  On a hunch I pulled up a picture of Chris and his daughter from  the obituary.  Is this your friend Abby, I asked Sarah?  It was.

I have a difficult time explaining why the suicide of someone I'd met only once should affect me so.  Actuarially speaking, the law of probability says that of the thousands of people I've met once in my life before, some proportion of them did as well; I just don't know it.  Why this one?  Why Chris?

Perhaps it's the similarities in working for DOJ; perhaps it's the similarities of lives in Fairfax Station and all that comes with it; perhaps it's because our daughters are on the same cross country team; perhaps it's as simple as our ages, our similar senses of humor.  Perhaps, in the stresses he described, it's all too similar to ones I've had.  And perhaps it's just the uncertainty of not understanding Why, and how he could come to make this choice knowing what it would do to Abby.

And so maybe the question isn't so much Why Chris, but, if I see such similarities between us...why not me?  Am I somehow vulnerable too, to that evil whisper of complete and utter despair, and just don't know it?

Of course not.  At least I don't believe so.  But sometimes it's the utterly axis-shaking act of a suicide of an acquaintance, that can induce such introspection.  And at the very least, it brings us to a stop, and to breathe the ancient prayer, Requiem in pacem; pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

May you have the peace you apparently couldn't find with us, Chris.

And God bless you and keep you, Abby.