Five stages of grief, huh?

No, I don’t have the tolerance to wait out five of anything right now, thanks.

I’ve accelerated past denial, probably because people in my grove of the woods don’t bother denying something we’ve heard a dozen times, and I’m stuck at half-past angry. God help me if I ever get to acceptance. God help anyone living in Winthrop or surrounding communities if we reach acceptance.

Call me irrational, but isn’t it about time to stay angry and stop accepting, tolerating and trying to explain away what’s happening to our kids, our student-athletes, in epidemic proportions?

Chad Garwood, son, big brother, exceptional student, former football and basketball star, committed suicide last Saturday.

On an island, on its own demerits, this would be an unspeakable tragedy, as it is any time a person who is smarter, better looking and more socially and athletically gifted than 99.5 percent of the populace chooses to stop time and leave the rest of us to lug the emotional baggage.

But Winthrop is no island. It’s a pretty, lakeside town. In pockets, it’s an affluent town. At the moment, though, it’s a troubled town.

In the space of roughly two years, five athletes in the 16-to-25 demographic have taken their own lives.

Lee St. Hilaire, Jason Marston, Bryant Donovan, Troy Ellis and Chad Garwood grew up in this capital area bedroom community of 4,000-or-so, walked the same hallways at school, toasted life at the same parties, and in too many cases, attended one another’s wakes and funerals.

They sniffed the floral arrangements. They shared funny stories and laughed between their tears. They soaked up the adulation that none of us share liberally enough when our loved ones are here to enjoy it.

Somewhere between the harrowing news and the committal prayers, you wonder if, and where, and how, they might have interpreted the way-off message that death is a good career move.

We sportswriters and spectators always have been able to count on Winthrop to teach us the value of tradition.

I’m convinced there is a by-law prohibiting any Western Maine basketball tournament from unfolding at nearby Augusta Civic Center without the Winthrop boys’ and girls’ teams involved. Friday nights and Saturday afternoons are lifeless without a football game to watch. The Ramblers’ field hockey and track and field teams rattle off winning seasons and championships with the consistency of a music teacher’s metronome.

Tradition is powerful, but not all tradition is good.

There is a culture of suicide in Winthrop, and there always has been, so don’t accuse local legend St. Hilaire of starting one.

Most current Winthrop High School students were toddlers when another former football player, Glenn Hayford, shot himself to death in the early 1990s.

We’ve lost businessmen. We’ve lost single moms.

We ought to be losing our patience.

Surely, Winthrop is so understandably numb that it can’t collectively think straight at the moment, so hopefully I’m not out of place suggesting that five successive suicides within the same circle of friends indicates a serious problem. And it’s one that requires immediate action.

Schools, social workers and clergy need to put their heads together, pronto. There should be free, around-the-clock counseling available throughout the summer to any resident who even hints at a permanent solution to temporary tribulation.

When classes reconvene in the fall, suicide prevention must become a point of emphasis on the level of saying no to drugs and drunken driving. We’ve seen schools simulate the horrors of operating under the influence right down to the blood and broken glass and wailing mothers. How about demonstrating the hideous ripple effect of one suicide in a similar fashion?

We’ve become too politically correct, so afraid to speak ill of the dead that we obscure the reality of what a selfish, lingering act this is.

But we’d better stop biting our tongues and making nice, or we can go through this ritual again. And again, and again, and again, and again.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].