is the economy to blame?

Everyone is starting to feel the effects of the country's recession in one way or another. The biggest businesses are begging for money after sucking the consumers dry (how funny is that, GMC?), and others are cutting their losses and filing Chapter 11s faster than I can say Bank Of America. We've already cut 70,000 jobs this year, and things seem to be getting worse before they can get better.

My question is this: when does it become so, so bad that you'll take your own life and the lives of the ones you love?
For a man in Los Angeles, I guess he decided enough was enough. After both him and his wife were fired from their technician jobs at Kaiser Permanente, he went home; killed his wife, his five children...and then himself.
It's been reported that Ervin Antonio Lupoe called 911 to inform the police that he came home and his family had been murdered. But police investigators are ruling out that possibility and calling it murder-suicide. At the same time of receiving the emergency call, local news station KABC-TV received a suicide note via fax and notified the proper autorities.

"So after a horrendous ordeal my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave our children in someone's else's hands, in addition it seems Kiaser Permanente want's us to kill ourselves and take our family with us. They did nothing to the manager who stated such, and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and 5 children under 8 years with no place to go. So here we are.
Ervin Lupoe"

You can read the rest of the note sent to the TV station here.

I understand that this is a trying time for everyone, employed and otherwise. It's harder now to keep your job than to get one. But...this is something I don't even want to attempt to make logical.

My heart aches for his family, and those children--one 8 year old, and two sets of twins, ages 2 and 5. I personally understand what it means to struggle financially, but taking the lives of your seeds should never be an option. I also can never fully understand what another man is going through, losing a job after your wife has been fired...and having the blessed burden of six other mouths to feed...but if you want to take the "easy" way out, take it alone.

R.I.P. Brittney, Jaszmin, Jasseley, Christian, Benjamin, Ana and Ervin Lupoe.

(deuces.)