So sad. So very, very sad

This past July, Brandon Miller - a 43 year old father of two, a New Yorker, a Brown graduate - killed himself.

The US averages well over 100 suicides a day, so Brandon Miller wasn't alone when he decided to do himself in. The overwhelming proportion of suicides are male, so there may well have been a few other forty-something fathers of two killing themselves on that day. And all those suicides no doubt left an indelible mark, an unfathomable level of never-going-to-go-away pain on their family and friends. 

But there's something especially sad about the death of Brandon Miller. Something particularly American tragedy.

Ostensibly, Brandon Miller and is wife were living the high life. He was the wildly successful second-generation New York real estate developer. His wife Candiece, the social media chronicler of their neo-Gilded Age lifestyle - heavy on extravagant homes, over-the-top parties, luxe consumption, jet set travel, perfect mommy-ness. 

She was known for her vintage designer gowns and for private fitness sessions (about $250 per hour on top of $900 monthly studio membership fees) that she filmed and shared online.

The Miller children’s birthdays were also an opportunity for Ms. Miller to entertain on a grand scale — for friends and for online fans. A Coachella-themed party for one daughter spawned a torrent of Instagram posts tagging the vendors Ms. Miller hired: a party planner, a florist and a DJ. Helping to keep it all afloat were nannies, housekeepers, drivers, boat captains and personal chefs. (Source: NY Times)

Having sold their Tribeca home a few years back, they were living in a glam apartment that rented for $47,000 a month. (You read that correctly: $47,000!!!)

The showpiece of their consumption was their 5,500 square foot Hampton's mansion, where a few years back they held a 10th anniversary party. 

Beautiful women in gowns watched with their handsome husbands as the couple renewed their vows near a swimming pool strewn with peonies and rose petals beneath a canopy of lights. 

Peonies and rose petals. Sounds gorgeous.

For the Millers, unfortunately, the lifestyle of the rich and famous was becoming an illusion. 

They were behind in their rent, and hadn't paid the tab for the rented furniture ($180K for the first year; $12K a month after that) that graced the apartment they were more or less squatting in. 

None of the deals Brandon Miller was working on came through. He borrowed millions, trying to stay afloat until his ship came in - in the image and likeness of a fabulous, lifestyle-saving deal. Some of his borrowing came from friends.

He took mortgages out on the Hamptons house, mortgaging it to the hilt. 

His million-dollar speedboat - Miller Time - was repossessed. And by the looks of the green scum-covered pool, the Millers hadn't been paying the pool service on their Hamptons pool.

Candice Miller supposedly had no idea of the dire straits they were in until late last spring. She just kept spending up a storm to fuel her Instagram account with content - spending on items like an $800 facial. After she found out about the financial shape the couple was in, on the promise that a new deal was going to make all the bad stuff go away, she took off with her daughters on an Instagrammable luxe vacance on the Amalfi Coast.

While his family was away, Brandon Miller hit a friend up for $1,000. (You read that correctly: a lousy one-thousand bucks.) He then headed out to the Hamptoms, where he jiggered with his Porsche Carrera so that it would fill with carbon monoxied, and proceeded to kill himself. (He was found before he died, and lived a few days in the hospital.)

No one's waiting around for Candice Miller to finish her grieving. She's being sued for all the money owed on the Hamptons house, which she has now put on the market for $15M. Word is that Brandon Miller had a hefty life insurance policy, so she is not being left a penniless widow. But $15M (the rumored policy amount) isn't going to go very far toward sustaining a lifestyle that was more billionaire than millionaire. (I was wondering whether insurance paid out on a suicide death, but apparently as long as you've held the policy for two years, you're good to go. As it were.)

And word is that Candice Miller is relocating to Miami from New. 

Who could blame her, although Miami doesn't exactly scream unostentatious lifestyle to me. 

Still, I wish her and her daughters well. Not sure of their ages, but in a picture I saw, they looked 11-12-ish. Terrible to lose a father at that age, for sure. And terrible for Candice Miller to lose her husband, who she'd known since childhood, especially in such an awful and sudden way. And in such a public and humiliating fashion.

But what a lesson in getting sucked into the wannabe super-rich way of life. Can't help but think that, if they'd decided that they didn't need to be super rich, or have super-rich people think they're super rich, they could have lived a more than comfortable life in Westchester or New Jersey or Connecticut. Nice house. Nice cars. Nice clothing. Nice vacations. Nice schools. A nice, prosperous, upperish classish life. Just not a $47K a month rent and Coachella party life.

Candice Miller might still have a husband. And those two little girls might still have a father. 

If crazy, deadly, insane consumption isn't an American tragedy, I don't know what is.