This is a letter for you. If you have a plan. If you have a real wish to end the pain. If you are at the end of your tether and donât have anywhere else to turn. If you feel hopeless.
I canât save you. I canât promise to stop you wanting to end the pain. All I offer is the truth.
This letter isnât designed to stop you. Its not written to guilt trip you into stopping. I know better than anybody how it feels to be you. I have been you. I Am you. I know that nothing anybody can say or do, family, friends, care teams, anyone, will change your mind. The only person who can do that is you. It needs to come from inside.
So what happens? If you complete your plan? Honestly?
For the people left behind the world stops. Just for a moment. The world crashes down around their ears and their heart stops beating. Their mind stops processing information. They donât dare to breathe, blink, move a muscle because if they do its real. The news they hear, read, find out, becomes true. Youâre gone.
Then once the world starts moving again they realise theyâre crying. Theyâre at home, at work, school, the mall. But even though the world is moving around them, they stay frozen, shock. Disbelief. They donât Want to believe. Because how can the world keep turning with somebody so important gone? How can the world bear it? How can people keep living their lives when somebody you love isnât here anymore?
When youâre there, standing on the edge of forever. All you can think is âNobody cares, nobody will miss me. Iâm so unimportant. And those who do miss me will only miss me for a while. The world will continue without me.â
And youâre right, about the last part, the world will continue without you. But the people who miss you wonât do so for a short time. They will miss you every moment, of every day for the rest of their lives. They will remember.
The people who âWonât care when Iâm goneâ will care so very deeply and you will never be there to see it. See how it stops them existing. How it stops them wanting to continue existing.
Iâm not saying they will take the same steps to end their pain. Pain is a relative concept and everybody deals with it in different ways. But you can stay alive and not want to keep being there. Not want to continue to keep watching the world unfold. Because the world Shouldnât be doing that. How can it? Without you?
The formalities of death will happen. The funeral, cremation, burial. Those things will happen, and they will be so hard but people will continue past them. The formalities will end and it will be over. There will be quiet. Calm.
Because we always will remember. Be it a song, a word, a photo, a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas, any celebration where people gather. Where everybody joins together and forms what you think of as family, or friends. And we will remember. And we will want the world to stop turning again. Because how can it continue without you?
And you wonder how I can know this? And why you should care?
I know this because Iâve been you. Iâve stood on the edge of forever and held my breath and looked down into an end for my pain. A lifetime of pain. Of torment. Of hurt. Of shit that never seemed to end.
And Iâm so glad I was, now that the darkness has passed.
And Iâve also been the person left behind after somebody I loved wasnât pulled back. Iâve had my world crumble, time stopped, I had to watch the world continue, attended a funeral with more people than you would ever believe. And Iâve lived the memories, the songs, the photos, the moments without them.
Since she left, Iâve seen more love for her than I would ever have imagined. So much love, that an entire community seems to be weeping for her. So much love, so many tears, so many missed moments. I just wish somebody had told her. I wish somebody could have showed her.
I donât want anybody to stand on the edge of forever and think theyâre alone. Think theyâre unloved. Unmissed. Hopeless.
Because none of those things will ever be true. You will always be loved, whether you like it or not, you will always be missed and you canât avoid that either. And there will Always be hope.
Its been 3 months since I stood on the edge of forever. 3 months since the stranger and the Police man saved my life. Since they hugged me and cried.
And if a stranger can cry from fear of my potential lossâŚ.just imagine how the people I love would have felt.
I canât save you. I canât promise to stop you wanting to end the pain. All I offer is the truth.
And hopefully that will be enough.
You are loved
You are Important
Always
