so the first successful suicide at my job finally happened (atleast since i have started working); two days ago on the 11th floor independent living level, an old woman wrote a note, pulled a chair out onto the private apartment balcony and died somewhere down on the 4th floor landing. naturally, this happened on graveyard shift. exact time of death not entirely clear. a couple residents called downstairs about hearing a "thud" but nobody could locate the source until someone glanced out their window. then the police came and news helicopters started the predictable vulture circling of the building. never a dull moment. i am reminded yet again of finding my elderly neighbor and friend dead in her apartment back in west philly many years ago, of sitting across from her slumped corpse at the table she died at, tv still blaring, waiting for mortuary services to arrive and juggling failed efforts to comfort her middle aged son who sobbed next to me like a hysterical little kid and unfortunetly beat the stretcher to the scene. i will never forget that disillusioning moment when "old people" became actual human beings capable of the same extremities of loneliness and despair as the rest of us, not just someone else's smiling, clueless, dismissively cute grandparents.