Pick up the phone, talk to someone

Today is the day they officially say goodbye. Goodbye to a friend, a sister, a daughter, a wife. But they will never stop wondering. They will never stop missing her.

Reading the posts on her memorial page on facebook, you would never know that there was a desperation so deep, an aloneness so wide, that she could feel compelled to take her own life. How does someone who by all accounts touched so many lives with joy, laughter, happiness, singing, and love feel so sad that she could take a gun and end her own life.

Suicide doesn't create just one victim. It takes one life, but it brings pain and suffering to many, many more. Every family member, every person who cares about and loves that person is scarred. The people left behind cannot help but wonder what if...What if I had called at just the right time. What if I had reached out and been more persistent. What if I hadn't missed the signs. What could I have done differently to make this end differently. It is impossible to stop the questions, the wondering.

The suddeness of it, the absolute starkness, the switch that has been irreversibly flipped from here she is, now she isn't is probably the worst. There are no more chances to say I love you again, no possibilities for good bye. Just silence and space.

I have never been in a place so bleek that I contemplated ending my life, and for that I am extraordinairily grateful. I have not experienced depression that envelopes me like a heavy wet blanket of doom and makes it hard to think much less move. I have never been so sad, even at my saddest that I didn't want to keep living and breathing. But people do experience this, more often than we realize. And some of them succeed at ending the pain by ending their lives. But that is not the answer. No matter how dark it gets, no matter how useless you feel, there is someone who loves you and thinks you are worthy of that love. Someone who wants to see you again, hug you again, laugh with you and cry with you and eat popcorn with you.

For anyone who has been in that place, or knows anyone who has been or is in that place, there is help. You are not alone, and you can find someone to talk it through with. There are many resources, but one is The Hope Line a project that grew from a tragic loss of one mans' wife. He decided to help people like his wife find hope and help.

It is as easy as dialing 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433). With that last bit of energy, that last small voice in your soul telling you to try one more time, pick up the phone and talk to someone. Don't give up, don't leave those who care about you here, wondering and missing you for the rest of their lives. You are worth so much more than that. Nothing is so broken it cannot be fixed, nothing is so damaged that it cannot be renewed. There is always help.


For Alicia ~ Peace