To the editor:

This past Tuesday evening, I dined with friends at a local restaurant.

I had hoped recent media discussion of suicide (in large part due to deaths such as Robin Williams’ and the numerous area suicides ), would be enough that businesses, the management behind such businesses, would comprehend that calling a dessert menu item suicide would repel rather than attract customers.

Lawrence is an aware, educated, progressive community where sensitivity and political correctness thrive. We have some of the most knowledgeable and compassionate social workers, teachers, health care professionals and law enforcement personnel that any city our size could hope for and expect. Why then does the underlying attitude that suicide is something to make light of prevail?

Ignorance is not bliss, nor is it an excuse. Just as it would be inappropriate to name a menu item homicide, esophageal cancer … well, you get the idea; it’s inappropriate to name something suicide.

Until suicide is taken seriously enough to appreciate how painful such an item can be in triggering memories of how a loved one died, then our community and culture at large is missing the point of compassion and adding to the likelihood that this type of loss will continue to take place.

Please help educate yourself, loved ones and local businesses by speaking up about insensitivity and ignorance.

Respectfully submitted by someone who has lost a mother, niece, aunt and numerous friends and acquaintances to suicide.