My only niece, who was wonderful, kind, caring, good to her family, and loved horses, took her own life recently. It’s the only death I’ve experienced that has impacted my life in a very negative way. Other people I cared about have died, but they were older, and I was prepared for it. Suicide isn’t an act of selfishness. It isn’t a crime. It’s something that happens to a desperately sad person who just can’t continue on living. They don’t understand how much everyone aches after they are gone.
To my niece, I would like to say that I love you, and I forgive you for all of the pain I feel right now. To anyone else who is contemplating suicide, you don’t know it now, but people will hurt for the rest of their lives the moment you die. The pain you feel as someone who is suicidal is the pain that people who knew you feel after you die, except it doesn’t go away for them.
The words that I write are coming from a person who has been suicidal, has had a father attempt suicide, has had a friend attempt suicide, and has had a niece kill herself. In every single case, they were sure that death is what they wanted, but after the attempt, every person, even my niece, decided they wanted to live.
In the end, everyone wants to live. That’s the strange thing about suicide. You can never be successful in completing suicide because all people truly want to live. For those who do complete suicide, they just died before they got a chance to come back from near death. My niece, in the end, wanted to live. She, like every other suicidal person I’ve known, begged for her life to be saved. She went from being sure she wanted to die to sure she wanted to live, but it was too late for her. Her family and an excellent medical team couldn’t save her life, even though they did everything right.
Her parents had recognized the signs and were doing absolutely everything they could to improve the situation. Everyone did everything they could, but in the end, it is the suicidal person who makes the decision. If anyone who is suicidal reads this, please know that there is a better way out than ending your life. Realize that, although you don’t feel it now, you do want to live.
Now, I try everyday not to cry, but the tears keep falling.
To my only niece, I love you, goodbye forever.