I got a phone call yesterday, the kind that everyone dreads. The kind that starts with a shakey, "I don't know how to tell you this, but..."
... but one of your very close friends is is dead.
A friend of five years took her life last Friday night.
And you go through the "But I just talked to her last week"s
And you go through the "If only I had done this" and "If only I hadn't done that"
But in the end, there wasn't anything that could have been done. She just didn't see the world and life the way that other people did. And it is such a shame.
She was young and smart; articulate and well read. She was funny, with that nicely balanced, slightly oh-so-wrong sense of humor. She had just graduated from college a few months ago. She had a whole, full life ahead of her. She had good friends that loved her dearly and would have done most anything for her because she was a good friend herself.
But she had a different perspective. One that she just couldn't get past. She didn't see the end of college as a new beginning; she saw it as terrible void. She didn't see a full life; she saw a life of pointless activities and meaninglessness.
She was supposed to come over to our house to finish getting the room ready that she was going to move into. The day she was supposed to come over we got a series of strange messages from her on our answering machine. I called her to find out what was up. She said that she was very tired and needed a nap. I knew that she suffered from insomnia, so I said, "Sure no problem. You should get some sleep. We'll be here all day." An hour or so later she left another message. One that was even more frantic than the others. "Uh, I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to make it. Um, something's come up. Bye."
That following weekend we were supposed to have a get together with another friend, J, that she had been looking forward to for months. She would not return the phone calls that I made daily that whole week. She didn't make it to the get together.
The following weekend, J called to let me know that the reason that we hadn't seen our friend around was because she was in the hospital for trying to commit suicide. She had gone in the day that she had left those messages on our machine. This wasn't her first attempt. She had been hospitalized a couple of months ago for the very same thing. And both SSB and I were fairly convinced that she had tried to jump off a bridge that Saturday night before she was taken to the hospital this last time. She had stopped over to our house to hang out and had deep scrapes up both arms. She told us two different stories, the second involved a bridge.
She tried again while she was in the hospital, but they let her out anyway, last Tuesday. I got a call from her that day. She was trying to sound chipper and wanted to small talk, but I could tell that things were not good with her. I told her that I was very glad that she was OK and that I wanted to get together with her the next day. She said there was someone on the other line and that she had to go because she was expecting a very important phone call (which I do not think was true). She agreed that we should get together. I was sick with a migraine Wednesday, so I stopped over to her house on Thursday. She either wasn't home or wasn't answering the door. I left a note on her door letting her know that I had been there and that I missed her.
If I would have known that that was the last opportunity that I had to say anything to her, I might have left a longer note.
But I know that there probably wasn't anything more that we could have done for her. If we would have pushed harder, she would have spiraled faster. If she had been left in the hospital, well, I couldn't see that place giving her the will to live. She was on medication. She was supposed to be seeing a counselor. She had friends to talk to and we were always there for her.
And I was pissed at her. How could she do this to us? We were always there for her. We tried so hard to make things better for her and she just couldn't hang on just a little longer? Maybe a week or two until her medication could have a chance to work? She didn't even believe that she was loved. But there were many people that loved her. There are many people that will feel a void in their lives. I know that I will. I've only had a handful of close friends in my life, by choice, and she was one of them. I have only met a few people that I would keep that close, and damn her if she would take that away from me!
But those are selfish thoughts that you think in grief. Her life was her own, not ours. We should be glad that we had the time that we had with her. It helps to think that she had a terminal mental illness. No one knew how long she had to live, but all of us that she held close knew that it was only a matter of time.
I remember during one of our talks out in the woods, she asked me, "You know that I haven't always been like this, right?"
I answered, "Of course! Of course you haven't always been like this."
She said, "Good. Yes. You're right. I haven't."
Too bad she couldn't see that she wouldn't always be like that. Too bad she couldn't see that the horribleness of life was all in her head.
I had the unfortunate task of letting my coworkers know (as we had both worked at the library for the last 5 years together). It was nearly too much to tell the news over and over in the place where her ghost was lingering everywhere. And then having to console people and try to help them understand. I was in tears as I checked out books, but relieved the people of guilt as we shared a laugh by my somewhat playful demand of, "Pay no attention to me."
I was exhausted by the time I got to my second job. I thought, well, at least I won't have to recount things here. But it turns out that the owner's children were friends with her too and she already knew. She tried to comfort me by saying that she believed that she would still go to heaven because it was a disease. Well that's a nice thought, but I'd rather have her here.
17 comments:
Sometimes things like that can happen.
http://pinklady.typepad.com/
Maybe a form of consciousness where thoughts intuitively interact between us like emotional, mental, and spiritual “energy fields.” Maybe that consciousness you experienced is another field of energy, like gravitational, electric, and magnetic fields.
Have you ever thought where to do thoughts go? They don’t go anywhere, maybe they exist in perpetuity!! And when you delete an account on a computer or data, you cause that comment or data to be unable to be read, but it is still exists as a conscious thought!!
May the force be with you!!
It's all true. It happns all the time with me where I think about someone and all of a sudden there they are.
Reasons not to think about ex boyfriends - ew.
Yep, you always have the bloggers.
:-) The world is an amazing place.
Take all the time you need Syl. I just took a few weeks off from blogging too. I didn't realize how much I was missing the real world, it was nice to ignore the computer for a while.
Hi im far from understanding the mind and i never will but i am aware of things such as what you have mentioned....my mom will be thinking or just start talking off somebody and they will ring... I haven't experienced anything like you but by looking at peoples body language you can see mental bonding which isn't a consciousness thought. been with a partner, maybe lying on ur chest or been able to feel ur breathing, they mimic it, when you are walking down the street with somebody infront you sometimes mimic there pase and stride.