![]() The reality is, though, I will always feel guilty. I wish I could have been there to talk you out of it.Įveryone has told me this. I wish you could have told me how difficult things were getting for you. I wish I took the time to ask how you were doing: how you were really doing. I wish I never missed those phone calls from you. My feelings of guilt always come hand-in-hand with “I wish” statements. Guilt will always gnaw at me, no matter how much I know it’s not my fault. I want more than anything to have you here to help me understand why. When the world is silent, I always find my thoughts drifting to you. This knowledge won’t stop me from analyzing everything I knew about you and every single interaction we had up to that night. I know I will never know why you left us and how you decided that was the best option for you. I’ve thought through the “why” question, and I've obsessed over it more than I want to admit. I will never completely understand why you did it. Who I am today is, in part, because of you, and I’m glad to always carry you with me. But I’d rather get hurt for loving someone too much than miss my chance to tell him or her how much I love him or her. I may be overcompensating my relationships now, due to the things I never got to tell you. I regret not telling you that even though we weren’t two peas in a pod in high school, I enjoyed the teasing comments we shared whenever we ran into each other. I regret not telling you I was glad your mom would bring you by our house on Halloween to trick-or-treat when we were little.Įven if I hated being forced to play Mary in our elementary school float, I regret not telling you I was happy you were forced to play Joseph. Since you've left, I’ve always regretted not telling you how much I cared about you. I’ve been over-emotional, I’ve said “I love you” too soon and too often, and I’ve cared for people who haven’t cared for me quite as much. ![]() I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve since you've left us. I can’t say I’ve come to terms with what you did, but at least I know these four things are true: 1. The emotional and logical sides of me have been at war ever since you left us, and I’ve tried so hard to make sense of it all.Īfter five years, I’ve drawn four conclusions about what it feels like to be left behind as the product of a loved one’s suicide. My feelings surrounding your death have ranged from anger to sadness and from guilt to absolute frustration. I’ve thought about you more than you’d ever think I would since that night over five years ago. Our first instinct to protect ourselves from the hurt is to think it’s all just a bad dream. The only thing I remember thinking again and again as the night progressed - as more and more people showed up in our little town to be together, and as I hugged my friends more tightly than I've ever hugged them before - was, "This can’t be happening for real." The news about you touched every person on our side of the track that night. We’d been in school together since our 10-person kindergarten class. I remember that night through snapshots: Jordan lying on the track, Malcolm punching the metal bleachers out of frustration and my mom somehow ending up by my side with her face scrunched up in sadness. My memories of the night from that point forward are blurred, like my vision was as soon as those tears started flowing. I realized everyone was wearing this expression due to something far worse than simple muscle cramp pain. Then, I heard those two words: "committed suicide." You were a mutual friend to all of us, sure. I remember being confused when I heard your name between gasps and sobs. Had he caught a cramp? Had he sprained an ankle on the last sprint?īy the time I got on the rubber track, others were there, wearing the same pained expression. My joy turned to worry when I realized he wasn’t wearing an expression of triumph or celebration. Then, I remember noticing that my friend Jordan was crumpled into a ball on the track, right there in lane three, about 20 meters from the finish line. I remember being excited about hitting my personal best on the second leg of the girls’ race, and being even more excited after learning the boys beat the other schools by a large margin. We had just finished running the 400-meter relay race under the bright lights of another Friday track and field meet. It’s been five years, but I still remember that night like it was yesterday.
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