July 26, 2025

One sentence has flurried in my mind since I read it Wednesday:

Perhaps I did not deserve their deaths, but I did not deserve their presence in my life either.

Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

It stings. I don’t like it. But, but, but. But perhaps it’s true.

From my point of view — a 27 year old woman, a sister and a daughter survivor of suicide who has always loved my family deeply — it’s incredibly tempting to submit to cynicism. Thoughts like Nothing I did mattered flutter through my brain. It didn’t matter if I was the best daughter or the best sister in the world, they still left. The sad part about that thought is that it’s entirely true.

I’m sure many are thinking similar thoughts… if I’d only… if I was a better _______ … I wish I would have… the list goes on.

Suicide tends to reverberate guilt throughout its affected community. The truth is, you could be the best mother/father, husband/wife, brother/sister, son/daughter, or friend, and this nightmare could be your reality, too. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are and you were — you were a good _____. In fact, you were probably great. Odds are, you loved my Mom well, and you laughed together often. And yet…

The thought Did any of it matter? haunts me once more.

I loved my Mom… did that matter? I was a good daughter… did that matter? We loved my mom. My entire family loved my Mom deeply. Her community locally, and globally loved her deeply.

Oh, this shattering outcome makes it too easy to believe that none of it mattered.

“Why don’t I get to have a mom? I loved my Momma,” I sob endlessly to Scott (thanks, honey).

Then I despair that it feels like none of it mattered. That’s an incredibly easy lie to believe until someone knocks on my door to bring us dinner. Until we check the mail and have letters and packages from friends we haven’t connected with in years. Until we read the text messages. Until we feel the warmth from your embrace. Until we hear the care in your voices.

It did matter. It does matter. All of it mattered. Your kindness matters, your help matters, your love matters. It’s easy for me to believe that nothing I do matters, until I receive boundless kindness from those around me and I experience comfort and healing from each little act of kindness and care. That matters to me, and it reminds me that what I do does matter, and that what you do matters, too.

July 26, 2026

My brief life has been filled with such a series of endings, from moving every few years to unexpected deaths.

In therapy last week, I mentioned how I feel as though I’ve lived through several different lifetimes. It’s almost as if those events happened to someone else. Catastrophic loss alters one’s entire belief system and perspective on life, thus, when one has endured many such losses, it can feel like it happened to someone else entirely. Who I was died when they died, and who I am today is comprehensively different than who I was last year.

The 21 year old girl who desperately tried to keep her brother alive, but buried him instead, hardly feels like me anymore. She carried hopes, fears, tragedies, and experiences so foreign to me now because of how much has altered.

The 27 year old woman whose mom was alive, likewise, feels fatally far from my 28 year old, motherless self. Those women — both versions of me — feel irreconcilable with who I am today. She feels inaccessible to me. Her thoughts, her hopes, her dreams, feel like they belonged to someone else.

My therapist smiled and voiced that it’s important that I honor her; she counseled me to honor her for being a good sister, and for being a good daughter.

Tears welled immediately, connecting me to her.

“I was a good sister,” I said as my eyes created soft streams, “I did everything to try to keep him alive.” I paused, contemplating and remembering. “But I don’t know if I was a good daughter.”

* * * *

It’s interesting to reread these words from one year ago, and to see the thread between who I was then and who I am now.

I’ve been reflecting on the string of endings characterizing my life. I’ve been grieving the events that occurred without my consent, their effects rippling through every facet of my daily life.

Maybe I wasn’t everything my mother needed me to be, maybe I never could have been. Maybe it didn’t matter, no matter what I did, because she needed so much more than love to keep her afloat.

Kindness does matter, and, perhaps, in the end, it’s the only thing that matters. Kindness heals, kindness sees, kindness loves. Kindness is love in action. Kindness supports, and it helps people rebuild after catastrophe.

May we outdo one another in love and kindness.

May we forgive. May we repent.

May kindness guide our steps.

May kindness change us.