Unfortunate incident

It's been a few days since the event I'm about to tell happened. It was the first day of the year and I took the kids to a water park, so we were gone for most of the day and I did not observe any of the events described below.

When we returned, I noticed that someone had moved the shoe rack out of its place. Here in Asia people leave their shoes outside of their houses and in front of them there's usually a shoe rack and we are not the exception. We live in the 5th floor of a 24-story condo. The first three levels are for parking and in the fourth foor (which is the garage celiling) there are gardens, patios and playground areas, so from our windows it appears as if we are living on the second floor.

The shoe rack is outside our entrance door, next to the elevator and just below a window. Since I thought it was unusual for someone to move the rack, I decided to look ouside the window (remember, I'm still outside of my apartment). Below that window there is an entrance to the fourth floor patio and that entrance happen to have a small roof (about a square meter in size). From my vintage point, that roof looks like a small ledge.

When I looked at that ledge, I noticed the glass cover was totally shattered and there was blood. It was evident that something heavy had hit it and made a crater in the glass. The ominous sign of blood gave the me the chills. I went inside immediately to avoid my kids seeing that. I asked my wife if she knew anything about it and she said no, she had heard a big thump and commotion but had not paid any more attention. I went back to my kitchen balcony and I could clearly see the shattered little roof at no more than 2 meters from me. It was all smeared in blood and there was blood on the fourth floor, underneath the roof. And then I saw a policeman looking at the roof and taking notes. I think I knew at that time what had happened.

Later that day we learned the grim truth: A man had jumped to his death from the 17th floor. All we know about him is that he was a Singaporean Chinese, married with family. It appears that he said his life was not worth it before jumping.

Then I understood why the shoe rack was removed: That window was the only acces to the little ledge were the body ended up and someone moved it our of the way to go through our window.

He was Buddist, since for the next two days a group of people burning incience assembled on the fourth floor to chant and to cover the area with black pieces of cloth.

The kids don't know anything about it and Nohemi and I, while impacted for a couple of days, are back to normal. However, our helper was deeply shocked and is very scared to this day. I don't know what her superstions are but she and all the other Phillipino girls in the complex (and a number of other people too) are quite scared. They think the spirit of the person is here and now there are stories circulating around about the deceased appearing in the garage.

We had explained her that it's not possible for the dead to come back but still she is too shocked. I understand her fright, because it happened just a couple of meters from the room where she sleeps (Thankfully, she wasn't home and she didn't see anything). To help her cope with it, we had allowed her to sleep in the living room instead of her own room by the kitchen.

I don't claim to understad why this man decided to commit suicide. I know this sad things happen, specially in this time of the year. However, it seems to me he could have chosen another avenue to solve whatever his problems were. Now his widow and children will have to live with the burden of his irresponsibility for the rest of their life. I don't think that's fair.