I spent yesterday with a man I had only met the day before. We shared the cab of the art department truck as we drove around the valley all day making returns and pick-ups. As our conversation weaved in and out I couldn't stop asking myself what would make a young person want to end their life. At the start of the morning, my mom reached out to me. She asked me to check in on my younger sister. A friend of hers had killed themselves on Saturday night after a fight with their boyfriend. I was stunned. I had met this girl before but didn't know her well. I didn't quite know how to respond to the news. So I asked my mom what happened. She replied and said, “can you talk right now”? To which I respond, “No at work”. She then proceeded to give me more details than I needed to know while I was in this truck with a man I barely knew. 

All day, as we drove around, it would slip in and out of my thoughts. Why would she do this? In the text of what happened that my mom sent, there was a line that I couldn't stop thinking about. “She was about to lose her state insurance and dealing with this dude who just was playing with her.” the first time I read that I still found myself asking why would she do this. As the day ended I found myself in my car alone. That line still was rumbling around my mind. I can't sit here and say I know why she chose to end her life that night because I don't. I do understand what it feels like to have your life start falling apart due to things completely out of your control and then to have someone come along and only make it worse. In moments like that, it's hard to see a way out. 

So often people talk about how “you never really know what someone is going through”. That’s true I mean I don't know if anyone ever gets to truly know anyone. I think we can know a lot but never all of it when it comes to someone else. Still, many of us get to fly as close to the sun as humanly possible and don't become more empathic. It doesn't take a scientist to be able to take “you never really know what someone is going through” and round it out with the idea of being kind to people. I find that as I get older you can know exactly what someone is going through and simply choose not to care. You can even choose to kick them when they're down. By no means was this young woman's life easy that part I know is true. The trauma she endured throughout her young life seems like something more from a novel than someone's actual life. I, someone who didn't know her well at all knew that her life was not easy. So those like my sister who knew her well knew how these things were impacting her life daily. 

“Dealing with this dude who just was playing with her”. As it played over and over again in my mind felt more violent each time I heard it.  I think when someone decides to take their own life there's never just one reason, it's the result of companding things. I do think this story shines a light on the fact that someone can know exactly what you are going through and choose to shit on you anyways. I wish that what happened on that Saturday wasn't true. I wish she was still here. I pray for this girl's family and those who knew her well as they mourn the loss of someone they loved. You truly never know what someone is going through. I hope that we all could just be a little bit kinder. 

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