January 4, 2017. September 18, 2018. June 29, 2019. All three of these dates hold no meaning to many people. Each of these days came and went like the day before, but on these days, my life was flipped upside down and I was forced to learn how to live with a piece of me missing.
January 4, 2017, I had awoken abruptly from my slumber when I heard my mother in her room. It was there I found her; she had attempted suicide. Luckily, I found her when I did, and she was able to be saved. September 18, 2018, I received a call from my family friend that my childhood best friend had taken her own life, she was just 22 years old. June 29, 2019, my cousin called me sobbing on the other end of the phone, while I was at work my stepmother had found my father dead. His death was ruled a suicide. All three of these traumatic events have impacted my life’s journey, but they’ve instilled in me a precious virtue that I’ll carry with me forever; deep honesty.
Deep honesty is not the easiest personality trait to instill within yourself, but after some brutal self-talks and countless Kleenex boxes, I’ve promised myself that if I ever get to a point where I have thoughts of self-harm, that I’ll recognize them and seek help. Being deeply honest with myself isn’t just a depressed activity, it happens daily. Every day I think about those three days and how they’re going to impact me. And every day I make the choice of whether or not I’m going to let those three days define how I move forward in my life. Because I value my life, every day I make the choice to power through the pain those days have left me and power through, so that one day I could help other people, and myself, choose life.
When I say the word “suicide” it feels like a thousand tiny swords just declared battle on my tongue. Even as I type this now, typing the word suicide feels like my fingers are dancing across a keyboard of lava and not plastic keys. Each letter sends chills up my spine. Why? It’s just a word, but because three people I loved thought for moment in time the world would be better without them. All three of them were wrong. When my father first passed my family and I scrambled for a way to tell people his cause of death without sounding so harsh. A therapist recommended the phrase “they chose to leave us.” In those five words we found some comfort.
That phrase has given my family and I enough shelter to deal with the passing without hurting us too much, but within my journey into the deepest form of honesty I can find, I know it’s just a coping skill for us to employ.
When my mother talks about her attempt, she immediately will say how much she regretted trying to leave this world. She’ll tell you about how irrational she felt as soon as she tried to end her life. We’ve spent years trying to pick up the pieces of our broken relationship and I wish the same could have happened with my father and I. So, to honor him and my old bestie, I vow to live every day in the most honest way I can. I promise to be true to myself and not lie to myself if I feel as though I’m slipping into dark waters.
It might’ve been their choice to leave, but it’s my choice to stay.