Wow. Just learned that a friend may have committed suicide by jumping off a parking garage. More of an acquaintance, he was a good friend to my best friend and very important to the early stages of her music career. I came to know him through her. A lifelong bachelor (and maybe slightly Aspergers) he had a good career and many friends and was very involved with liberal charitable causes. He always had women he dated and who accompanied him to events (he was a fan of music and of the theater).
He was known for his annual Xmas Day party and loved to share his enthusiasms with people, sending people home with dvds of shows he loved. He threw himself a big party at a hotel for his 60th and hired two bands he loved, flying one down from San Francisco, and it was awesome to see how beloved he was by so many people. He was a real mensch.
This suicide would seem so out of character. He did have prostate cancer a couple years ago and was pretty private about it - perhaps it had returned and the prognosis wasn't good? It just seems so out of character, and one of his good friends just spoke to him yesterday and didn't pick up any clue.
I'm so sad for my friend too - this would be the second really important "support" person in her life to die in 3 months, and a third has been diagnosed with throats cancer in that time. All three people that played very important roles in her life and career.
