Dear Suicide, you suck.

It’s been three and a half years and I’ve become very good at getting through the days without minimal thoughts of Willie or the circumstances of his death. As a matter of fact, I have become quite the expert at seeing an emotion coming and heading it off and very adeptly showing it to the little cupboard inside of me that is getting very full of tucked away feelings right now. Very adept at it. So adept that a year ago or so I even came to the realization that I shouldn’t – and really couldn’t – keep doing that. Then, I decided that it hurt too much so I went back to tucking it all away. This though, with more awareness – so it’s all good, right? It’s not unconsciously happening at least.

Yeah, that’s not working so well. Things get stirred up and bubble to the surface more and more and they are stronger and stronger and demand attention. Sometimes it just simply overwhelms me and that’s that. Other times , like lately, I fight so hard to keep a lid on it and let out a bit here and there. Just enough so the pressure doesn’t cause a complete structural failure. But close. So close.

Today is one of those days of it being just under the surface all day again. Keeping up the ok face at work and in texts and conversations. Trying to so hard to ignore it all and pretend it’s not there. Flashes of images and thoughts and memories crashing across my mind in split second dashes of pain, leaving me determined to ignore them and be “fine”.

Until I get home and run out the things to do to keep my body and mind busy. Until I sit and stop and the tears are there without me noticing them starting, and my chest hurts from trying to breath through it and at the same time trying to shut it all down – hard!

The anger wells up that I can’t hold it off and that I want to. So badly do I want to not be feeling what I feel and thinking what I’m thinking. So desperately do I not want to ask the question that is sitting there – again, like it keeps showing up. Who cares? That’s what my mind says. It doesn’t matter and I’m not going to find the answer anyways. Or I already know and the answer doesn’t change what happened anyways, so who cares?

But still, tonight it’s there. The fucking drilling question of why? In my mind – which is the only place I can talk to him anymore – I ask him. Why? Why did you give up? Why did you decide that day and that time? Why didn’t you reach out for help? Why didn’t you say goodbye? Why did you have to do it? What hurts now though is that I can answer all those questions. I can, because he did. In his journals and his notes and his actions and his conversations those last few weeks and months. The answers don’t help me to stop asking though. Because the one question that I know, and hate, the answer to is the hardest. Why can’t it be different? The answer is, it can’t be.

Suicide, you suck. Mental Illness, you too. You can both fuck off. You leave questions and answers that never end.

Making it better , not always.

Sitting on the ferry and a baby starts crying nearby.

By the sound, it’s a very small baby. I glance over and it is indeed tiny. Less than a month old. Still has that hitching cry of a newborn. Shaky cry starting as it really gets going. Hungry most likely.

The mother is trying to calm it down and it’s not working. She looks tired but not frustrated. Just mostly tired.

She looks at me and our eyes catch for a second. I smile and she smiles back and she goes back to soothing her baby.

I look away. Tears running down my face as I feel again what it was like to have that moment. To hear that cry and hold that baby close and know that you’ll be able to make it all better.

I’m crying because in those few seconds I feel the hurt that sits so close to the surface when I remember those days. The hurt of knowing that at a certain point , you don’t have the power to make it all better anymore. The hurt that comes from remembering how it felt to feel Willie calm when he was a baby like that , coupled with the feeling of how it was when he couldn’t be soothed when he most wanted and needed and sought for it.