Is it Richard Sherman’s Fault?

It’s probably unfair to blame Richard Sherman for Jeannie’s death, but I do.

Sherman is the Seattle Seahawk’s player who tipped a game-winning pass away from The Forty-Niner’s Michael Crabtree in the final minute on the division championship game.

But shortly after that play, Jeannie made good on her year’s-old threat and committed suicide in a lonely extended stay motel just north of San Francisco.

As Sherman was exploding with a steroid induced rant against Crabtree, for a perceived insult months earlier, Jeannie was carrying out a plan she had conceived years earlier. After enduring more than 10 years of worsening depression, she felt she could not endure her own emotional roller coaster any longer.

A San Francisco native, and lifelong ‘Niners’ fan, she no doubt, watched the game, alone, as she arranged her jewelry, attaching notes to the new owners. She had traveled to the Bay Area from her home in Idaho, seeking yet another round of treatment for her affliction.

Maybe it’s not Sherman’s fault. We all share some blame. After all, I watched the end of the game at a friend’s home, less than 5 miles away from her, rooting against the ‘Niners’. As a California transplant, I just could not cheer for a team filled with what I considered a collection of boorish thugs. I’ll leave it to quantum physics to explain, but as the ad says, “It’s not crazy if it works.”

Perhaps, her friends and family should have tried harder to talk her out of her plan. But she made sure no one knew exactly what she was up to. In one of her manic moods, she went shopping a few days earlier, buying expensive new clothes and paying in advance for the alterations.

She kept an appointment with her doctor, listening intently as he explained his new treatment plan. From all accounts she was involved, although unquestioning in her resolve that this time it would work. After all, she had some periods of normalcy, even happiness, just a few weeks ago. We exchanged New Year’s greetings and she was absolutely ebullient that she had turned the corner and 2014 was going to be great.

But, like so many times in the past, it was a false hope, before her last fight from Idaho. She asked that we all respect her privacy as she dealt with the doctor and her inner demons, but that was pretty much the same routine as her previous visits. Hours before we received the call from her husband, still in Idaho, my wife and I had talked about Jeannie and considered, calling, texting, or emailing, deciding that like so many other times, she would let us know when she wanted companionship.

As we left out friend’s home, late Sunday night, we didn’t realize she would be ‘celebrating’ Richard Sherman’s athleticism by signing the papers leaving various body parts to science, particularly her brain, which is now slated for study at Harvard.

I hope it provides some help to another tortured soul. Maybe it will provide some clue of the lasting impact of electric shock treatment, or the permanent changes caused by continual cocktails of prescription medication, cooked up by pharmaceutical companies.

My wife is understandably devastated that her lifelong friend would not even consider some of the complementary techniques that others have found helpful. As best buddies from high school, their lives were intermingled: schools, graduations, parties, trips, vacations. Now, there is no one she can share those memories with.

I don’t know if Jeannie even bothered to take the new selection of ‘miracle drugs,’ before she packed her bags and wrote a final note with a carefully placed arrow pointing to the bathroom where loved ones could find her body.

Mr. Sherman, it’s not your fault, but I need someone to blame.

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