making a difference

At studiVZ, the german facebook version, there is a sidebar that always features 3 friends of your friends, whom they think you might know. I glanced over there and saw a rather good-looking guy sitting on a cliff in the middle of what seemed like the rain forrest.
I looked at his name and something sounded familiar, so I clicked on his picture. I saw that he studies the same as I do and that he was in my year as well. Why had I never noticed him? Someone as handsome as he was...
The I looked closer. His name did ring a bell, but suddenly I realized that that bell was not a welcome one. It was the guy who committed suicide about halfway through first semester. I looked at his pictures and from all I've seen, he was not only handsome, he was also adventurous and funny and talented in languages, with kids, helpful ... He smiles on every picture and has fun and enjoys life. He's been to many latin american countries. I remember them saying that he failed at re-adjusting himself to the german way of life. That he didn't feel comfortable and home here. The country he came from. He wanted to go back, but for that, he had to study. Here. In cold Germany. Where the weather is usually rainy and cold in the fall (when we began our studies). No wonder.
I remember thinking I wouldn't be able to fit back in, too. But I fell into this group of people that were all so funny and heart-warming that I forgot about my fears and just enjoyed it while it lasted.
That was 11th grade.
He didn't have a class. He had to start with college, where realtionships are loose and you see different people in every class. You hardly have a chance to form a tight circle within the first month. That was easier back when we were still at school.
One of my friends from college shared an apartment with him and another girl. She said he was nice, but also had problems and was depressed. They talked about that, she said, but she couldn't help him.
I have often asked myself if he ever talked to someone who felt the same as he did.
I often asked myself if I would have made a difference.
How would things have turned out if we would have been friends and if I would have seen him. I never saw him. I can't remember ever seeing his face in class. He was invisible. And that's how he died. Invisible. I didn't know him what had happened until a teacher came in some weeks later and read his letter to his fellow students and professors to us.
I am even more shocked to see him on these pictures on his "facebook"-type-a page. So happy. So cheerful and full of life.
He does not at all look like anybody who would even think of killing himself.
It is interesting, almost fascinating, to see how rapidly people can change. How the looks don't define our inner self. Even on my worst day, I can smile for a camera as if I just won the lottery and noone would even guess how I really feel.
Now, I don't doubt that he was not truly happy at the time these pictures were taken. It's just the realization how badly things can turn out if you don't feel at home.
I don't think anyone felt home when they first got back from a long stay at another country. I know I didn't. I barely ate, I slept a lot, I was quiet. Not at all how I usually am. I am a very vital person. Extremely talkative a flippy and I LOVE food. But homesickness does that to you. Even if it's not really home you're longing for.
I am so thankful for the class, this tight circle that we formed, that they, without knowing, caught me and made me feel home again. Here in the country where the cold reigns. (And I am not only talking about the weather.) They showed me that there is hope for warm-hearted people. Even though we had a throw back (one of my classmates died in 11th grade), we held together. We were like a family.
And being in college now, I see how much of a difference it makes for the people like us, the people who feel that they were not meant to live in Germany, to be welcomed into a tight, warm, time consuming (in terms of having fun and getting your mind off of the "better" place in this world) and emotionally uplifiting evironment.
Still, there is no reason someone should kill himself, because he can't be in this other place right now.
Would it have made a difference? Would empathy from a like-minded person have matterd? Did he maybe even talk to someone in the same situation and still didn't feel better?
I have so many questions, yet the only one who can answer them is not on this earth. And even when I die, he's a murderer, in this case of his own life, and murderes don't get to go to heaven.
I still hope that God had mercy on his soul. Because I'm sure he was a good person.