Cold and cloudy, with a bit of sadness in the air…

I’m sitting here on this dark, cold, gloomy day reflecting back.  This past week I learned of a friend’s death.  I stumbled across her obituary as I was trying to get in contact with her.  My e-mails had gone unanswered for a long time and I had decided to use the internet to help me in my search to find out where she was.

We were close friends growing-up, spending countless hours together through some of what were the the most awkward years of our lives.  We chased boys, drove cars (even crashed them) and broke curfew.  We had fun and talked about our feelings.  As we got older our lives were filled with changes, some good and some bad.  We moved away from home for adventures of our own.  We were living our lives.  Then, at some point, her pain overcame her ability to cope and she took her own life.

It’s never easy dealing with the loss of someone you loved.  There are so many emotions mixed up and so many questions left unanswered.  I don’t cry because I feel bad that I have lost a dear friend.  I will feel that pain inside of me for the rest of my life.  I cry now because someone I loved was in so much pain that they couldn’t deal with it anymore.  I can never understand how she felt just moments before deciding that she couldn’t go on and live this life any longer.

This isn’t the first suicide amongst my friends.  Unfortunately, this is now the third.  The third person I knew whose life was cut unnecessarily short.  I know this topic can often be very controversial and difficult for many to discuss.  It certainly is for me, but that hasn’t stopped me from learning more about it and trying to educate myself on the many topics surrounding it.  There are a lot of feelings mixed in with suicide and death.  A lot of things we’ll never have answers to.  We all have to work through our pain the best way we know how.

I hope to never have to deal with this form of death again, but there are few guarantees in this life.  For now I can love and let my love be known.  I can encourage those around me and look for ways to help those that may need it.  I can keep looking for that bit of sunshine when the sky seems so overcast and cloudy.