you CAN die from it

Do you know someone who always brings a ray of sunshine into the room? I'm talking a person with a razor wit, an infectious grin, always willing to listen to you whine, quick with scalding sarcasm at her own expense or a painful groaner of a pun? I get to see the friend who fits this description every other Wednesday from ten until noonish - the bright spot of my Wednesday workday - and while I filled her nails we would talk about the kids, our husbands, our mothers and pets, and all the ups and downs of our lives just as we have for the past ten years or so. Occasionally we would hook up to go for a walk, getting as much exercise from the laughter as from the mileage. She once helped me reupholster a chair - I stiffened her spine when she tried to talk herself out of going to her 30th class reunion. We exchanged hysterical birthday cards and Christmas presents. I held her hands every other week.

On March 26th she took her own life.

My friend did not attempt suicide. She made a methodical, intelligent plan - dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's - timed it and executed her exit from this life with the same precision she showed in the miniature rooms that she painstakingly created as a hobby. There was no detail unattended to. She was 48 years old. My age.

Five days before I posted to this blog about the social isolation of mental illness. At her memorial service, the pastor read from the Book of Job and pointed out that in Jobs culture, it was customary to sit in front of your home dressed in sackcloth and covered in ashes - to put grief and misery on display - but that in our culture, one is expected to hide grief; to put on a smile and always keep up appearances. She was a master of deception because she felt it was expected of her; she was always smiling, laughing, joking, because it hid her pain. I held her hands every other week. I never saw it.

And now I am keeping up appearances and hiding my broken heart. I miss her so much. And it occurs to me that her pain really didn't end... it merely moved... to all who loved her.

If you've ever thought about it... think about it.