This was taken from Life magazine where the picture was first published in 1947. Evelyn McHale’s note read, “He is much better off without me … I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody,” then she crossed out her own words and jumped to her death from atop the Empire State Building.
That is 102 stories of Art Deco architecture flown past eyes with tears in them and hands with flowers clutched tightly in them. Floors and windows darting past a body filled with emotion and surging with adrenaline. She landed with grace, beauty, peacefulness, and with not a hair out of place. She didn’t even get blood on her white gloves. She made her own sepulcher, except instead of stone she chose steel. Her eyes are closed as if in a dream and her mouth is open just slightly to release what remained of her soul into the sky.
She ripped her stockings and lost her shoes, but where she went she didn’t need shoes.
I found this in a drawer: ‘He’ writes from the future, “I know you wouldn’t have made a ‘good’ wife, Evelyn. You would’ve made the perfect wife. Your faults completed me as a person. Anywhere you faltered I felt completed by you and I felt my faults and strengths could hold you up as well.
After all of these years, I keep thinking how it would’ve been to spend the rest of my life with you. I miss you Evie. In an attempt to never lie to you again I must admit, on that day, all I could think was, ‘Does my car insurance cover this God awful mess?’ Then I sipped my Tom Collins. That I apologize for. I’m an asshole, in the most traditional sense. I also apologize for my vulgar words because you are and were always a lady. “
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