In Loving Memory...

This is definitely not what I wanted to post about. But I have to do it.

So everyone knows that teen suicide is a huge problem. Although, it's a problem I find a lot of people ignore. Like if they pretend it's not real then maybe it'll go away. Like maybe it WON'T be real if they just close their eyes and think of unicorns.

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Of course people don't want to think morbid thoughts like that. If everyone else is anything like me, they want to live and love with a heart that's full and unbroken, untarnished by the world's discrepancies. So they pretend that things they don't like aren't there in the hopes they'll go away.

Well it didn't.

One of my close friends attempted suicide on Tuesday night by overdosing on pills. He died Wednesday night in intensive care. I knew he had depression, and I knew he was suicidal, but all I could think was "why him? Why didn't I see this coming?" And in a way I had. But he lives an hour away.

I would have sat with him and held his hand every night if it had kept him tethered to me just a little while longer. He was a beautiful person. Of all the people in this town that didn't deserve to die, he was the top of the list. Because he was better than everyone else. He looked after his disabled sister and helped his brother with his homework and loved his girlfriend with everything he had.

Everyone loved him. And I mean that. And yet somehow he fell in between the cracks. Somewhere along the way, he decided I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE, WHAT'S THE POINT IN LIVING, EVERYONE WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT ME. At some point, he decided that it wasn't worth thinking about anymore, and at that point, he died. His soul fled this planet long before his physical body did.

But that's my point. How many people are we going to lose to mental illness and suicide before something's done? How many people are going to take their lives because of bullying before someone mans up to the situation? How many people do we have to lose for someone to stand up and say "this is our problem?"

He has over THREE THOUSAND messages on his Facebook wall. So much love. And somehow he never saw it. It was too little too late. If he were alive, he would be crowing about how he had more page views than me. But he's not. He's been dead for three days now.

So yeah. He wasn't the thousands of people who died in Japan. He wasn't all the victims of Hurricane Katrina... he wasn't all the dead from the Queensland floods or the Christchurch earthquakes. He wasn't Justin Bieber, he wasn't Pete Wentz, he wasn't Robert Pattinson.

But to some people that's what he meant. He meant the world to us. And now he's gone. Forever. I keep thinking every time my phone goes off that it's going to be him, teasing me about something, asking to swap shifts with me at work. And every time I go to pick up my phone, it isn't him. It's someone else.

This post will be swept under the rug. These kinds of posts always are. They force people to face facts. Force them to confront the question every person must ask themselves as they leave childhood. The question that everyone dreads because they don't always know the answer.

Who am I? What do I mean to the world? What do I want my life to be about?

He was my confidant. My rock. And now he's gone. Not so rock-like. Tomorrow is the Relay for Life, which he was supposed to be participating in. It's traditionally for all cancer survivors across the world. Running through the night, the darkest point in any person's life when they're afraid.

But I'll be running for him. He was in pain. His whole life in those last two weeks was a nightmare, one he didn't see a way out of. But I know that tomorrow night, as I run, the There's always light at the end of the tunnel. We just go a little blind sometimes. In the morning, when the sun rises and I've been awake all night, sun will be rising somewhere.I'll have done it for him.

He's dead. He's not ever coming back. But we all carry a little piece of him, all his friends and family. We'll all remember. And he'll be waiting for us. But I don't think he'll mind if we're a little bit late getting to him.

If anything, I know this: the world didn't stop turning over night. The sun continues to rise and fall, the birds will always sing and the seasons will change. The world is the same as it always was, just missing one of its vital pieces. And in the end, aren't we all vital pieces? All God's children, all chosen to live, all with destinies and hands and hearts.

Like with Josh, I will NEVER understand why he died. More than that, I will never understand why he chose to take his own life. He had so much to give to the world. There was so much I never got to say to him.

So much that I never will.

[Somewhere between the end
And the point where we begin
There's a fire burning brightly
That's found its way to dim

When the feeling's gone
Shine on, shine on,
On to something new
It's long and overdue
I will remember you

Shine on, shine on,
And let the others see
You've got your victory
Will you remember me?]

-A Solitary Blue.