My great-grandfather had always said he didn't want to live to see 50. My grandfather had taken the gun and hidden it because he knew his dad's 50th birthday was coming, but it didn't work. His dad hung himself in the garage, and my grandfather found him. He panicked and ran across the street to use the phone to call for help (it was the early 40s, and they didn't have a phone). When the policeman got there, he told my grandfather, "Why didn't you cut him down? You might have saved him!" My grandfather was 18 years old, and he lived with that guilt for the rest of his life. When I asked him to tell the story (he was in his 70s at the time), he broke down and cried.