i'd catch a grenade for you

a year and a half after i got out of the hospital i was able to wean myself off anti-depressant medication
we thought maybe this was a one time episode and things were pretty good for a few years.....
then my dad dies-and the darkness creeps in a little bit...slowly...gradually

that's how it happens- things get a little overcast and cloudy- and you get used to it

you get so used to it that you don't remember what you were like before

suicide - now there is a pretty scary word with lots of bad mojo - kelsey says they are called passive thoughts. i have had these thoughts for years. wishing  i would just disappear and all memory of me wiped from everyone who ever met me - or wishing that i would go to sleep one night and never wake up - or driving down the highway and just crossing the center line in front of a semi...that one scared me most of all because i could SEE myself doing it.

but i didn't do it.

why?

Carolyne, Kelsey, Elizabeth and Joshua.

my children.

 my anchors.

i could not abandon them even when all i wanted to do was run far, far away.

watching kelsey struggle and work through her depressive episode i am watching her and wishing i could do it for her. take the pain for her so she could go back to that lively, engaging, sweet child i see glimpses of every now and again and i know how difficult it's going to get for her outside the lines

i can understand...

...but i can't. big news around here the past week was a woman who went missing. she was found today and had apparently committed suicide. i know i have talked about depression and maybe even come across as a bit whiny at times.  i can't begin to know what her triggers were or even the thought process that went through her mind as she took her own life and left behind two teen aged daughters, a boyfriend and close family.. but...to be honest i can put myself in her shoes because i have had thoughts of ending it before.

i am not a stranger to death. i have known death first hand and personally since i was 7 years old. my youngest sister died- that was the first funeral i attended. i observed my parents pain and sadness at the loss of their one month old child- my sister. by the time i was 29 years old i had attended 4 more funerals- my older brother, my grandfather, my grandmother and my father. by the time i was 40 the total had grown to 9- my husband's aunt who was like a second grandmother to my children, my mother in law, father in law and my own mother.  these people were all very close to me.

so it really doesn't matter- suicide, natural causes, accident or terminal illness. death is hardest on those left behind. and even when you're prepared for it you really aren't. and even though you had time to say goodbye you still feel lost and abandoned at times. the death of someone is not something you get over- you get through it. you can go for days, weeks, months at a time and be just fine and then something will happen- it might be a song you hear or a smell or the shade of blue the sky happens to be that day. you'll remember and think about the person who died and all that grief comes pouring out of you again. time heals the physical wounds and the scars will fade. the scars on your heart never completely heal because love never stops. love is the reason i'm still here. i love the people i would be leaving behind too much to cause them so much pain- their pain would be far greater than my pain -real or imagined.