Quietly Desparate

I got creative and tracked down my friend through a google search of her job this afternoon. I simply dialed and in an instant there she was! She sounded funny. "What's wrong?" I asked. She apologized for not calling but said she's been going through alot. I swallowed hard. With a long history of depression, her life hasn't been easy, and I'm used to that, but this time something was different. There was more. My fear was realized when in the next breath she revealed that
her sister had killed herself. It was a shock to everyone that knew her. There was no note. There were no clues. There was no indication at all with the exception of her plastic smile and
perfectly spotless home. She simply cleaned her home from top to bottom, prepared a week's worth of food for her husband and two small children, brought a photo album to the garage, started her engine and sat for hours while the life slowly drained out of her - leaving her body to be discovered by her horrified family who'd just returned from a fun day at the park. (I wonder if a lifetime of therapy will ever heal the 4 and 6 year old sons?)

My friend believes she'd just had enough of life. I just don't understand it. It makes me mad. How can she do that to everyone! To my friend! She didn't even ask for help! Why didn't she ask for help! Why didn't she tell someone! Something! Anything! She had a large circle of friends - including 5 best friends that she saw every weekend. She had plans to do something with them the next day.

Didn't ANYONE notice something was wrong?

Her husband didn't know she was sad. He didn't know she'd recently seen a pyschologist. He didn't know she'd started anti-depressants. He didn't know that she'd begun a beading hobby or
where she kept her books.

Apparently, he didn't know her at all.

I guess no one did. It seems my friend was the only person in the world whom she'd trusted to share that despite appearance, she didn't in fact have a "perfect life." All of her friends wanted to be just like her. Fancy things, rich husband, big house and children. But apparently it was all a lie. An illusion. She was living in a bubble. What people saw - verses what really was. Inside- the darkness, the sadness, the loneliness and alienation of being trapped inside the illusion of her own making - an inability to reach out and puncture her own self-constructed myth.

My god. What a tragedy. There were hundreds of people at her funeral. Hundreds. All of those people, and not one of them had a clue. My friend blames herself. What can I do to ease that sort of burden?

Unreal.

Crazy.

She can't believe she's gone. How can she really be gone? Like, forever?

It's a reminder to me to read between the lines. Listen to what's not being said as much as what is being said. And just because someone isn't demonstratively "in crisis" or calling great attention to their needs, it doesn't necesarily mean that they don't have them - that they don't need help - care - that they aren't in pain so great that it seems the only relief will come from the termination of life itself.

Be attentive to the people you love. Andeven to the people you might barely know. Maybe especially them. You never know who might need you. I know there have been times in my life where I have been so isolated and sad that a simple word of concern from a stranger would have been a godsend.