…avoidable deaths by people who felt they had nothing to live for.
The person I knew, really wanted to live – her dream was to free herself of heroin and settle down and have kids. She funded her addiction by prostitution (anything from working in massage parlours, to when she was really desperate, working the street) and shop lifting. She was kind and sensitive (she only liked to buy products from the Body Shop, because, "they don't do horrible experiments to little animals" …. FFS) She was also, not that it's particularly relevant, a real stunner, and 5'11" of mostly legs, the only thing that spoilt her appearance, was the approximately 15" huge angry scar down the front of her neck and chest where someone had tried to kill her.
She was constantly being arrested, and she told me that she feared she would probably spend her 21st birthday in prison instead of celebrating it like other normal people. She never made it to her 21st, she died of a heroin overdose when she was still 20. She never stood a chance, both her mother and her step-father were/are heroin addicts, and she had been an addict since she 15. It was Christmas time when discovered she had died – I had a Christmas present for her (which of course I had bought from the Body Shop) but couldn't get hold of her, I ended up leaving it behind the bar in her local pub. A while later I managed to get hold of her mother who told me she had died. That was about 11 Christmases ago, but I still care that she isn't around.
Of course it's not all just down to personal experience, I also extend the caring whether people die, to those I don't know, and even those who I don't like – everyone has a right to life.