The Beards Hollow overlook on State Route 100 in Cape Disappointment State Park is an inspirational spot I visit nearly each day from my nearby house. Visitors take countless photos there, perhaps recording their first glimpses of the awe-inspiring vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

It’s sorrowful but perhaps also a little comforting that a teenage girl took her life there last week. Tragic to think of a bright young person in despair. But I hope she found at least a little solace in contemplating the ever-roiling sea and endless horizon. I will forever think of her when I’m there.

Suicides are among the most delicate of subjects, and never more so than when one involves a young person. We and most American journalists exercise maximum restraint in reporting on them. This primarily is in consideration to grieving family members and friends. The last thing we want to do is make an awful pain even worse by intruding.

I’ll leave it at that, other than to say that we in the news profession agonize over such events and weigh our responses very carefully.

On a far different note, my wife and I enjoyed a sunny half hour Saturday at another spot near home — a bench at the eastward end of Maya Lin’s installation near the Cape D recreational boat launch. The day, though infused with cool autumn air, was inviting. There may have been as many as a couple hundred fishermen between where we were and the western end of North Jetty a couple miles away.

We watched as a fisherwoman hooked a bright Chinook salmon, and I scrambled over a few rocks to net it for her. She and I shared a smile as a quick look discovered no adipose fin, meaning it was a keeper — her first ever.

The ocean and land form a spectacular but dangerous intersection — a jetty fisherman lost his life nearby last month. See www.chinookobserver.com/news/local/fisherman-dies-while-fishing-on-jetty/article_56ffd6fc-5f13-11ee-a165-83b439292d4f.html.

We ought to always contemplate the beauty, pain and brevity of life in this splendid place and make the most of every day. I appreciate being your neighbor as we each navigate our way toward eternity.