Don’t blame the bridge

Don’t blame the bridge

EDITOR:

In response to Paul C. Campos’s Aug. 16 column, “The Golden Gate Bridge, a suicidal attraction”, I agree, something needs done. The bridge isn’t the problem. It’s a stationary object. The problem is a sign of the times and it’s a loneliness, an ever present emotional pain deep inside many human beings. Continuous pain is unbearable, causing many people to die.

A suicidal person only wants the empty, lonely pain to stop. That person longs for an outside source to ease their silent suffering within. It is not realized the answer is there within the hurting people themselves. Suicidal people are stuck in one time frame of their life, usually emotionally horrific, as in childhood or a specific relationship.

The answer isn’t in changing the bridge. It’s in changing a person. There should be programs that offer the hopeless hope and reason to move forward; step beyond the moment of hurt and learn new ways of thinking. Suicidal people have low or worthless opinions of themselves. That person needs to refocus on their makeup; not focus on their weakness and what can’t be changed but to their strengths, talents and gifts that make them of great value.

Yet Congress keeps itself blind to what throwing the Ten Commandments out of schools does. How can anyone growing up to realize it’s wrong to kill — even yourself? People need prayer. Pain needs to heal to stop.

Not the bridge but society as a whole needs to go to a new and different place — to see ourselves for the amazing creations we are; and no longer believe anything that causes one to question that.

MARILYN A. ROYAL

Youngstown

Fellow diners made her day

EDITOR:

Recently there was an article about the First Italian Festival in Salem. My niece was mentioned, as well as the originator of the festival, pictured in the doorway of her Green Rose Bistro. The people raved about her food, so I thought I would take a ride to Salem Saturday evening and have dinner there. I found a beautiful Italian restaurant, filled with happy people eating and smiling. I was alone and as I was eating my salad, I kept looking all around me and outside the big window behind a couple seated at the table next to me. Outside I could see more happy people eating pizza and having fun. When I was ready to leave, I asked the waitress for my check and she said “You don’t owe anything, it has all been taken care of.” I laughed and said it was probably my niece or the owner, Maria Longo. No, said the waitress. I am not to tell you. I asked her to change a large bill for me so I could leave a good tip. It took a little while until she came back, and then told me it was the couple at the next table. I left the tip and hurried outside, but could not find them in the crowd.

I am a volunteer visiting secretary in the chaplain’s office at Northside Hospital. Our motto is from Matthew 25-36 “I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came unto me ...” you know the rest of it.

May God bless this couple tenfold for their kindness and caring. I shall always remember them.

OLGA MORRISON

Youngstown