Original Risque Poster

Lying in bed, scrolling through memes, I first came across the one with a new "voice activated" coffee machine. The fellow first to show up at the office after a new coffee machine had been placed, added that sign, and said it produced the best three hours of his life, listening to his coworkers trying to "activate" the new coffee machine!I laughed until I had tears coming down my cheeks!

Then, I came across the photo of the painting of two women looking out a window, placed over a urinal. I was familiar with the painter and the painting!This painting is from 17th century Spain, and Murillo is the artist. As with all artists then, most of their paintings were religious in nature, for commissions from various churches and monasteries, etc. Murillo's painting of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception became the standard all other versions were judged by.

This painting of the two women, perhaps a young woman with her chaperone, although others suggest a young lady of the evening with her procuress, was probably commissioned by a Dutch client. I also laughed to tears seeing this, and decided I could combine these two to make a poster that might be widely spread on social media, and bring attention to the need for being prepared to respond to someone thinking of suicide. The painting resides in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and I verified it is in the Public Domain. The result was this poster:

This occurred right after the suicide of a friend and fellow leader in a 12-step recovery group. I had previously led a small group of those recovering from anger and codependence, for over a decade. Coupled with the suicide of a friend and coworker I had had many personal conversations with, but did not recognize he had serious struggles, I decided I wanted to do SOMETHING.

My initial idea was to put this poster over a urinal in a restaurant men's room, and hope that it would be shared widely, and at least 2 people who were suicidal might change their minds - similar to the British woman who saved 8 lives she knew about after she started putting notes on the bridge she had intended to jump off (see the page on Positive Notes).

But then a discussion with my messaging coach, Ben Patwa, led to me changing my focus to what I believe is an even greater need, with the potential to lead to many more lives being saved - to get the attention of, and generate enough interest to become informed on suicide prevention, by those who have never been touched by the subject of suicide, and have no reason, see no need, to become prepared to save a life.

Believing that sharing the story of the miracle of "coincidences" and timing down to the 20 seconds to be able to save my 3-year-old son's life would indeed generate interest, combined with observations on lives saved with the Heimlich Maneuver and CPR (I'm familiar with both, but never used them or seen them applied) and the fact I have intervened 4 times with someone contemplating suicide - perhaps that would generate interest in becoming prepared to save a life. The result was this other poster: