Ever wonder what else you could have said? Could I have changed her mind? Can we stop a fate as dark as this? We stood at the door and saw the haunted look in her eyes. A mixture of despair, anger, and fear shone in her eyes as she wordlessly took her papers. Her shoulders carried weight we could not see, pulling down down into despair. Her heart was metastatic pain, years of mistakes, hurts, failures spread to every fiber of her being. She was physically dying, no doubt, but her heart seems to have passed first.
She had it all: Family, career, home, a future where she could one day rest and enjoy her grandchildren were all in reach. Addiction rears it’s ugly head, that short term answer to traumas past. Self medication for hurts only God can heal, and they can be healed. Addiction takes a good heart, a selfless heart and turns it in on itself. Addiction leaves a person in their own world where they are god, frantically trying to arrange the outside to make the insides at peace. Addiction lies and says no one notices, you are not hurting anyone, you can do it one more time. An obsession of the mind and a craving in the body, an impulse to feel good. Almost a reflex in its speed, a person turns a good life into hell.
She lost it all, first her career, then her spouse. She couldn’t be there for the kids in her own pain and insanity, so she lost them too. Sure they still lived at home, but they were gone. She drove away family and friends. I recall admiring her at work, her heart for others, her soul that smiled. People kept their distance in order to not allow that spiritual cancer to spread; she burned those bridges well. Then went her home, lost without income or care. All was set aside so she didn’t feel that pain, that withdrawal. She couldn’t face herself, others, or God. In the end she lost all hope. She was dying anyway, why not?
All I could think to say as she stood at the door was “take care of yourself”. Had I any inkling of what was to come next, maybe I would have said more, put my foot in the door, dragged her to a safe place but she had pushed us all away so many times. It was an honest wish that she stay safe, sentiment from the heart that said “I want to see you ok”. Addicts in the end all die unless they are willing to change, a softening of the heart borne of pain. She was offered a helping hand by more than just me, over and over again. The stop signs, the warning flags, the pleas and the offers were many. She could have went out with peace, but chose violence. She could have walked with God With Us, but she in some dark delusion thought herself beyond all help. When a person completely loses all hope, you see a person standing on the brink of life and death. Losing all hope is a rare thing, but it is real non the less. We see it everyday, whispered by friends and family when asked “what happened?”
It is just sad when we run out of words, ways to help, ways to reach out. It is like yelling into the void, and not even hearing an echo. I hang my head low thinking of her pain, what she threw away, those she hurt, those who tried. I doubt I could have said anything to change her mind, she had lied to everybody. She had no plan. It all seemed so random, a moment of deep despair, a permanent solution to a solvable problem. A moment of intense pain, a grief we cannot perceive, perhaps an “Ill show you”, one last lashing out to a world that broke her. No matter, she is gone now and all that is left is sadness. It will take a lifetime for some to pick up the pieces.
I won’t say how she did it or shame her or glorify the situation. It was a sad, ugly choice she made to end her own life. It is a tragedy of a spiritually sick soul, a tragedy of a life, a tragic death. We grieve what could have been. We pray for those close to her. We may be angry, we may cry. Our gaze is cast down when she enters our minds. I grieve her life, take lesson from her obsession, and pray for her and her loved ones. Take heed to those who seek to self medicate! The stakes are life and death. Reach out for help! We may work to intercede, and maybe one death can save many more. That still won’t take away the pain. One truth remains when one dies by their own hand, we may never truly understand, but that’s what so frustrating, we cannot ask her “why”.
Help is available
Speak with someone today. Do it, don’t delay.
After The Work 
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