Hope...

Yesterday, I was finishing up my school day, playing on Facebook for a little bit, grimacing at the window because once again it was snowing outside, and once again I had to drive to work. Suddenly the phone rang, and it was a lady from my church. She was calling to ask me if Alex and I were going to attend the funeral tomorrow, and if so, would he like to bring something up to the altar that meant something to the little boy who had died. Woah! I thought to myself. back up. Who died? What happened? Typically whenever there's some type of tragedy in the area or accident, the school sends out notes to the school. We don't go to the local public school, so we don't get those updates. So, I was just finding out then that a boy that was in Alex's Faith class had died. 12 years old - apparently he had taken his own life. 12! 12 years old! I just sank onto the couch...how was this possible. To me that's still a baby! What could possibly have gone so wrong for this boy that he felt he had no hope of a better tomorrow. In the end, it turned out he hadn't been in Alex's class this year, but was one grade ahead. After I got off the phone, I had to sit my 12 year old son down and explain to him about suicide, one subject I'd hoped to avoid for a long time. I asked him if he knew the boy, and he said, yes..that he was a nice kid, pretty funny too. Then I told him...that this funny boy was dead and what happened to him. Alex's face just sank, like he couldn't believe such a thing could be real...that this is something that only happens to grown-ups, older people. Not someone he knows. Afterwards he went outside to play, and I just sat there...what could have gone wrong, he was only 12.......
Back in 1988, I was 14 years old and my father had just died weeks earlier, and we had just moved to our new house on Narragansett Bay. My Grandma's house because she had just gone into a nursing home. My mother was going through the motions, trying to take care of her kids, move us, and take care of her mom. Pretty overwhelming. I can't even imagine, but at the time I just felt lost. I found myself sinking...I felt all alone...no one understood me, no one cared about me, not really I thought. I just wanted to leave and go hang out on a cloud with my dad, just watch everybody, one less problem for my mom to deal with, right? I was starting high school in a matter of days and didn't want to answer people's questions or feel their pity. I just wanted to go away.
So one afternoon, while a bunch of us were busy painting our bedrooms at the new house, I went into my mom's medicine cabinet and took one of her bottles of pills and just swallowed as many as I could - 20, 30...? Did I want to die? At that moment...yes...I just didn't know how to do it. After I swallowed, I just stood, looking at myself in the mirror, waiting...would I fall asleep, what would happen? Nothing happened, but I started to panic. I didn't really want to leave my mom, did I? My brother might need me to, I thought. It was just the three of us now. Then my mom came up and started working on my room, asking me what I thought. About 90 minutes had passed. I couldn't believe what I had done, so I told. I just blurted out that I'd swallowed a lot of pills. At first I think she thought I was kidding, but then she was shocked. She grabbed the pills and went downstairs, showing them to my Godmother, who was a nurse. My Godmother didn't think anything would happen, but there was no taking chances, she said. Off to the hospital we went. I was so embarrassed; I so wished I hadn't said anything. I just remember drinking a disgusting drink of liquid charcoal and having to answer many questions from a psychiatrist. After a couple of hours, we went home. We hardly ever talked about it; it was so uncomfortable for both of us. I never did anything like that again, but I thought about it once in awhile......
That was 22 years ago now, and I can only think of what I would have missed if I'd just left this world. Good and bad. We only get one shot here, and we have to give it our best. No matter how bad, how awful we feel one day, there is always HOPE that the next one will be better. Kids don't always see tomorrow the way adults do. They think they are going to live forever, and I think sometimes that is just too much to deal with. The truth is tomorrows really are limited, and that the clock is always ticking. When I go to bed at night I try to throw away the bad and wake up to only the good - you've just got to hold on to the good. When you feel there is no good, hold on to the hope...