DISCLAIMER: I ask that you bear with me as I struggle to articulate fresh thoughts.
-The Aftermath and Afterthoughts-
It's been nearly two months. It's weird scrolling through her Instagram, and watching the few videos I can find of her. It's weird looking at the pictures I do have of her. It's just genuinely an odd thing to think about the fact that the person I am looking at, the person who was seemingly the happiest girl I knew, is dead.
It's weird to think about the fact that it was by her own hand. It's all just very weird.
My best friend, basically sister, of nearly 16 years; one of the only people who genuinely had been there from the beginning committed suicide at the age of 20. I remember the night I got the call asking if she was with me, no one could get a hold of her that day. And she wasn't with her boyfriend, which was highly unusual. It was different and I knew it. I had been asked to stay late at work that night, but when I got the call, I left immediately. I tried calling her phone twice and the second time,the call was answered, but not by her. It was her mother, crying hysterically over the phone, her words were muddied but I could make out only a few, “She's gone.”
And the call dropped. I heard the ambulance, and saw the lights as I pulled up to the intersection. I work close to home. When I saw them I knew something was terribly wrong. I ran the red light and sped down the street. By the time I got there the medics were already walking into the gate to our complex. When we were finally up there it only took them about 5 minutes to determine that they could not doing anything more for her and pronounced her dead.
Less than 3 months shy of her 21st birthday. We had discussed how that would go. She would get unbelievably drunk and I would take care of her just as she had taken care of me during my blackout.
We had it planned out. Not completely. But we would be each other's bridesmaids, God mother to each other's kids. We were both going to school to be Pharmacy Techs. And she was the cutest in her scrubs. That's how it was supposed to be. But now every plan we made is gone. Everything I thought I knew is all muddied and I'm sort of lost in this endless trail of denial and confusion.
I know in my mind she is gone, and my heart can feel it. But I still wake up sometimes thinking that I'll once again see that magnificent smile. Enlightened by the life that had once burned bright inside of her. She was a force to be reckoned with. A heart too pure for such a cold world, and she never once failed to see the good in others even when they had failed her.
I guess I feel guilty in some way. Being her best friend, I wasn't the very best I could have been, she was always so selfless and I was always so selfish. Even now. I'm afraid I have made this entire post more about myself than I have about remembering the most amazing person I knew. What if I was there for her like I should have been? Hung out with her more. Called her more. Text her more.
I can't say totally what it was that drove her to do what she did. Whether it had been years of hidden depression, or a more recent set of issues that escalated quickly and manifested into her decision. I can only dwell on the fact that two possibilities exist: A) A friend to lean on could have swayed her decision. B) No one could have saved her.
Whatever the case may have been, she's gone, and it's a matter of coping and picking up the pieces she left behind.