sadness

The God who Heals — Day 6: One Year Later

June 27, 2025

This surreal week will haunt me for the rest of my life, and yet I’ll remember your kindness vividly in the days to come.

Love permeates everything and its warmth reaches my deep wounds. Tonight, I remember that the New Testament word “Salvation” is the same Greek/Hebrew word for “Healing”. Jehova-Rapha: The God who Heals, written throughout the Old Testament. The God who heals broken hearts and broken minds. The God who binds our wounds and holds us up. El Roi: The God who Sees. The God who sees me — who sees us in our pain.

I live amongst a community of mourners: I know you’re hurting too. I know you loved her, and I know it’s so hard to fathom life without her. She was such a light, such a joy, and so… “sparkly” as my Grandpa, my mom’s dad, described. I love it – she was so sparkly.

Life is so confusing right now. It still doesn’t feel real, until it hits and it hurts excruciatingly. I don’t want it to feel real, I don’t want it to be real. None of us do.

Thank you for being here, for watching, for reading. For holding my hand, playing with my hair, and hugging me. Thank you for loving my mom.

Be well tonight and get some rest 💙 Live loved.

June 27, 2026

The mind works restlessly to comprehend catastrophic loss. In early days and weeks — perhaps even months — after Mom died, I vividly dreamed of her but could not reach her. I knew she was dead during each dream, then I would wake up after a fitful hour or two of sleep and blankly stare into the darkness

Those memories haunt.

We became a community of mourners that day, ever changed by a choice we were powerless control.

Kindness powerfully redeems and heals wounded hearts and minds, but individuals must take ownership of their healing.

Admitting sadness isn’t enough. Admitting depression and anxiety isn’t enough. Admitting isolation isn’t enough. It’s a massive step in the right direction, as many [like my Momma] refuse to admit or acknowledge it to begin with, but saying it aloud isn’t enough to heal someone.

Coming to terms with the reality of one’s own mental fragility can be incredibly painful, vulnerable, dark, and frightening. Yet it is in this darkness that seeds of healing begin to grow when watered with kindness and compassion.

I have been amazed at people’s kindness and cruelty amidst this horror, but I believe that there have been far more kind actions than actions meant to harm. It’s unfortunate that the cruel actions cause such rippling dramas, but it is the compassion that acts as a raft to carry us through.

He is the God who heals and the God who sees, and this healing and seeing often comes from people who peer into our lives to offer compassion.

Thank you for joining me on this lonely and isolating journey, and making me feel less alone 💙

God Can’t — Day 5: One Year Later

June 26, 2025

I’m 27 years old: I thought my family was supposed to be growing at this point in my life, not shrinking, but I’ve lost a brother, a mother, and we can’t get pregnant. We’ve been “trying” for two years now, for all you well-intended people that keep telling us we need to have kids. I don’t like to talk about it, it’s deeply personal. But today? It’s just another wound in a long list of hurts.

It’s hard to trust God in times like these — life can be so cruel, and this feels devastatingly horrific. I see the support of God in the provision for my family, in the food at our table, in our ability to have my remaining living family here, in the friends that hold us, clean for us, and provide for us. The support is palpable, but it’s still hard to trust God. I so often say “I know God can do anything, but I am also vividly aware of what he will allow.” Here we are again, harrowing in what God will allow.

Our table felt so small after Patrick died. Our immediate family of six became a family of five, and now our family of five becomes a family of four. Oh but wait! “They’re always with you!” No, there’re not in the empty chair. It’s still just as painful without them in it. When I was a child, I used to think families of four were so little. Family of four? We had four kids in ours! And it was loud. Now, it’s so quiet. So somber. So mournful. It should be — we loved our Mommy.

It’s so tense and so stressful and so sad. A myriad of emotions waiting to burst from our eyes or escape from our lips.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Just… be so gracious. As you can read, I’m a little snippy today. I need a lot of grace. Don’t be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you. It’s not you, it’s all we’ve got going on.

I know many of you reading this are likewise deep in mourning — be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.

Future Ways to Help

Lawncare: My parents’ have a beautiful lawn, with gorgeous trees and plants. A lawncare service would be very helpful. Beyond a lawncare service, weeds grow so fast here — if you drop by, maybe scan the lawn before coming inside and pick some weeds if you are willing and able to.

Gift cards: Right now we have plenty of food, but in a few months, making dinner every night will feel overwhelming.

Any little act of service helps. All those small little normal tasks feel like such monstrous feats when your heart is hurting.

If you can’t physically help but still want to do something, please consider the GoFund Me: https://gofund.me/6617c101

Thank you, immensely, for everyone who has shown up to help, who has given, and who has prayed. Every little bit helps 💙

June 26, 2026

I’ve pretty much given up hope that our family will grow.

I think many people dream of a family to heal the wounds they inherited from their family of origin. I dream of being a mother who watches her children grow old with my husband, and a mother whose children grow up and live full lives — my dream is the bare minimum — I just want everyone to live. But thus far, it isn’t possible for me to create life, let alone sustain it.

* * * *

My mindset about what God “allows” significantly shifted after reading Thomas Jay Oord’s God Can’t. Christians often acknowledge God’s limits (ie: he cannot sin, lie, manipulate, etc), but seldom do many apply this to what God can and cannot allow. Man cannot have free choice if all his actions are predetermined by an outside source.

I believe that God gave life, life in abundance, and life in fullness. What some have done with life is heartbreaking, but I do not blame God for that anymore — I blame people.

People, in need of desperate grace. People, in need of radical compassion. People, in need of healing.

Details of Death — Day 4: One Year Later

June 25, 2025

My mind is… occupied. Lots of people coming into town, lots of arrangements to be made, lots of logistics to coordinate, lots of thoughts to think.

I started to get snippy today and short-tempered. I don’t like that, but thankfully I have a lot of wonderfully gracious people to talk things out with.

There are so many details in death. I feel so much older than I am.

Be in the youngest in my family, I will likely be involved in the funeral planning of the majority of my family, so I guess I am really learning how to do this by myself one day. I just hope it’s not anytime soon.

Anxiety starts to mature within me. Who’s next? I ponder as I look around our table. It’s scary.

I’ve been here before — it provides a nice kind of structure of what I think the mourning process will be like over the next few months, but it also brings a sickening dread — How much will it all hurt when everyone leaves and life goes back to “normal”?

I miss my mom. Sometimes it’s a searing pain, sometimes it’s a dull ache. It will be like that forever.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out — I have an abundance of messages I cannot keep up with, but I do enjoy reading them and appreciate your encouragement and support. I read them in small doses when I want a distraction.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Saying “Your mom is always with you,” is not helpful. Perhaps it will be in the future, but in the first few days it’s more of a reminder of the chasm between my life and my mom’s death.

June 25, 2026

I’ve mostly accepted the fact that my youth died ages ago. I don’t ever remember feeling young, but these deaths make me feel half a century older than I am.

I remember watching Patrick [high] in a hospital bed, crying alone and thinking how much that had aged me. I felt much closer to fifty than to twenty-one.

Then Mom died, and I feel older and older and older.

I’ve never been “young and full of energy.”

It feels like I never experienced youth, and now I’m starting to age out of it anyway.

My sweet friend Lauren left me this basked on June 25 last year. She flew into town immediately, and she and our friends Gabi and Laura Kate provided the gifts.

There is no sweeter gift than showing up for one’s friend, physically or emotionally, during crisis and suffering. These little things imprint on one’s heart and ease the endless ache.

June 2026

Ground Zero — Day 1: One Year Later

June 21, 2025

Ground zero.

I’m always amazed how much pain people can endure when faced with suffering.


I woke to notes of encouragement, sorrow, and prayer. My breathing fails, my eyes swarm with tears, and my body heaves with the weight of my mind.

“My Momma. My Momma. My Momma. I loved my Momma,” I chant in a voice choked by emotions and tears — words barely able to escape my mind and reach the outside world.

My Momma is gone, and she’s not coming back. My Daddy, my Daddy. My Daddy☹️ I can barely move. I don’t know how to function, “My Momma. My Momma. My Momma,” I mumble.

How do I reconcile this? It doesn’t make any sense. I know I’ll be angry with God for that sometime later, but today I’m just trying to survive. All I want to do is be with my Daddy and my brothers.

I can’t walk 20 steps without sobbing: “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.”

All I want is my Momma.

One Year Later

June 21, 2026

Photographs poured in from across the globe, beginning the day after she died. It was loud back then, with the whole world feeling ripples from the explosion that was the epicenter of my family’s universe.

It’s quiet today and still: we live among the ashes.

Interestingly, I did not become angry with God like I had predicted one year ago. That surprises me — I was very angry with him after Patrick died — but I suppose I outgrew that perspective.

This time, anger at God was not a battle I needed to wrestle through. I haven’t written much about God, but I’ve talked about him with many.

I’ve come to view God as far more compassionate and loving, and remembered Christ as he was known — as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. God as the savior who heals, God as the creator who gave abundant life, Christ who came to demonstrate a greater way to live on earth.

This life — my beautiful, tragical, emotional, unforgettable life — is such a gift. My family is everything, my relationships are everything, my experiences are everything.

I sat by one of my nieces this week and allowed a tender tear to grace my cheek, simply in awe of the fact that this precious little life loves me simply for being in her life. It’s an overwhelming amount of love. The joy and the beauty of simply being together, surrounded by my sweet family, thinking how wonderful it is to love them and to be loved by them.

I cannot imagine walking out of my nieces and nephews lives like my mother, aunt, and grandparents walked out of ours. They’re withholding and missing out on so much love.

That’s not God’s fault, it’s theirs.

We each have choices of whether to harm one another or to love one another, and unhealthy thought patterns ultimately lead to death in one sense or another. We are free to make our choices, for better or for worse.

Now, I’ve walked miles without sobbing “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.” I knew it was possible back then, but it was incomprehensible at that time.

It is astounding how much pain people can endure; it’s unbelievable how much pain I have endured. People often try to comfort or maybe explain [I think??] by saying “She [Momma] was in so much pain,” but her pain didn’t end: it transferred to we who survive, giving us a trauma she did not have to live through.

Love is eternal, and so is loss.

Perhaps there is a grand reunion in the afterlife, but we living will carry Momma’s loss until we too take our final breath.

Her love endures. Her loss endures. In some ways, she endures too, her blood coursing through our veins.

Her loss is irreconcilable, and it isn’t meant to be. Mommas aren’t supposed to leave their babies. People aren’t supposed to choose their deaths.

Life is hard, but our endurance should be celebrated. Our lives should be celebrated.

One year later, glimpses of life flutter from ground zero. All that is gray and dark does not last forever.

Week 51

Fifty one.

My mom turned fifty one 21 days before she killed herself…. How sick, to murder oneself. Ugh. It’s so… abrasive.

Fifty one — we called it “Fifty Fun.” I coined the term, but Mom thought Scott made it up. Scott & I laughed about that at the time. She just adored Scott; he reminded him a lot of herself, with his optimism and lighthearted demeanor. Now these similarities scare me about Scott sometimes… Isn’t that sad?

“She was supposed to be ‘fifty fun’ not ‘ fifty done,’”I’ve often repeated to myself this year.

Grief rips apart one’s sense of time and space. It’s been almost a year since my mom died, but it feels like it’s been a decade. Others think the year went by fast. It’s seemed like an eternity. Pieces of me feel like I never had a Mom — I feel so far from her, it’s like she was part of someone else’s life. It couldn’t possibly been my life.

The sun and the moon and the tides testify to time’s reality, but it’s simultaneously a construct. A way to measure our days, with seasons to mark the harvests and the plentiful and the droughts.

Time moves quickly when we enjoy our lives, slowly when we’re bored, and halts when we’re suffering.

Suffering refines and illuminates what matters, while healing ensures one concludes with the right perspective.

It seems as though nothing matters when one’s suffering. For example — from my skewed and insecure perspective — nothing I’ve done matters.

It didn’t matter that I loved Patrick.

It didn’t matter that I loved my Momma.

It doesn’t matter that I love my grandparents.

It doesn’t matter that I loved my former pastors.

My kindness and my love, in the end, didn’t matter to any of them. They’re still gone. They’re still dead, in one way or another.

The letters I wrote them didn’t matter. My forgiveness doesn’t matter. My kindness doesn’t matter.

I can do all the “right” things and remain punished by others’ decisions. In a sense, nothing I do matters.

Nothing I did matters.

They chose this, they did this, and nothing I did deserved that.

So… nothing I do matters.

* * * *

And yet… it all matters. Maybe it didn’t matter to them, maybe it did in some ways, but ultimately it didn’t.

Healing reminds me that it all mattered — it all matters.

I’ve experienced how much kindness matters. Again and again and again, people extend kindness and grace and support, and others’ actions matters. If others’ kindness and cruelty matter, mine does too.

Many have said that my words matter. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how one’s actions matter when he or she experiences so much pain because of another’s actions.

Sorrow rips apart time and space, too. How hard it is, then, to see one’s importance and brilliance in a world clouded with such potent pains.

* * * *

She was beautiful, she was real, she was my Momma.

She loved me, but that didn’t matter either. It did and it didn’t.

Week 50

It’s incommunicable how much life grief takes from you.

It’s the life itself.

It’s the relationship.

Then, it’s all relationships.

It’s the griever’s energy.

It’s the griever’s social capacity.

It’s the griever’s concentration.

It’s the griever’s loss of clarity.

It’s the griever’s loss of stability.

It’s the griever’s loss of comfort.

It’s — The list never stops.

Every single survivor is affected holistically, and it’s impossible to communicate. It’s impossible for outsiders to understand, it’s impossible for outsiders to see, and perhaps it’s impossible for outsiders to believe.

It’s impossible for survivors and observers to fathom.

So much life gone with the loss of one individual’s life. It takes everything. She took everything from me.

She took everything from me. There is not a corner of my life unaffected by her decision.

Some people try their hardest to beautifully ease the burden she left, some people intentionally add to that burden.

Nearly a year ago, volunteers from the Women’s Ministry at my mother’s church joined together to create a beautiful atmosphere after her funeral. They provided nourishment and filled a room with flowers, honoring my mother and my family. I often think of the beauty they created, and the tenderness they wanted to continue towards me and my family, with gratitude and kindness. They eased the burden.

Our small group raised a small fortune to help support me and Scott and Sawyer when we were out of work, and they even made a sweet basket for my dad.

Dozens made and brought food to our families. Some sent packages, some gave books, some brought flowers.

Some still do.

There’s so much loss in this life after death, it’s as if the acres of my life have burnt to the ground. The fire of her death consumed everything, and every bit pained me to death, too.

Life on every acre ceased that day, but the ground of my life remained. I lived.

I live, this empty, decimated, desolate life, but life returns after all wildfires. Maybe at first it’s just grass, and then wildflowers, and then one day maybe trees will grow and roots will return to this ground that’s covered in ash.

So much life destroyed with the death of one so beloved.

Week 49

There’s an ache in my chest that reminds me you’re gone.

It sits with me all through the day and greets me at dawn.

Birthdays pose a conundrum when people die. How strange and liminal they feel… there’s naught to celebrate, but it was once such an important day.

Many adults hate their birthdays — I’ve always resented that — because our society tantalizes the fear of aging, as if growing old is not something miraculous. As if living a full life is not something to celebrate, as if gray hair and wrinkles aren’t something beautiful that we earn as we triumph through this tumultuous life.

I often tell people that birthdays — just like weddings — aren’t really about the individual. They are, and they’re not. They’re really a chance for others to celebrate one’s life: other people love your birthday, other people love celebrating you, because they love you. It’s a chance for others to gather around you and demonstrate their love.

Once they die, however, birthdays become solemn days. What is there to celebrate, if not the one to celebrate?

My mom sometimes made a cake on Patrick’s birthday, and that felt odd, but what else is one to do?

Last spring, she was with her parents’ in an allegedly great trip. But oh, we can’t contact them because they decided to try to sue us. So loving of them, right? how nice for your grandparents and aunt to try to sue you after your mom dies.

Her church threw her a cute Hawaiian-themed party at work, but not once did her pastor reach out to us after she died. And it’s not safe to contact them, either, because they’ve been in constant communication with my grandparents… who tried [are trying??] to sue us. The two executives who did reach out to us? Ah yes, had dinner with one and never heard from them again. Had dinner with another, and that individual told me that they needed to read my blogs before I post them because they don’t like the phone calls they get when I do mention something about them. I laughed. Oh, and apparently they didn’t appreciate the guest speakers at my Mom’s funeral. We chose the wrong people, I guess, just a couple days after my Mom died.

No mom, no grandparents, no church. Oh, how different this year looks from last.

Like I wrote a few weeks back, if they can treat me this poorly, what did they do to her?

Happy Birthday, Mom. Thanks for all this. I am sorry for whatever they did to you, because what they’ve done to us is horrific, and I’m sick of keeping their secrets. Lies and secrets kill people.

Week 48

There are some types of sorrow that busyness passivates, while types of pain that cause tears to trickle regardless of how many tasks engage one’s mind.

For the most part, I can function relatively normally. Sure, my mind may be cloudy most of the time, but the average bystander seldom notices the storm in my mind.

In fact, somehow, I still have a reputation for being “happy” at work. No matter what I share, no matter what I do, somehow this cult of positivity shapes me into what it wants to see. Others want me to be happy, so they say that I am.

In some ways they are correct maybe — I still find happiness in many things — but I’ve never considered myself a very happy person.

Melancholy — that’s the word I’ve resonated most with for my whole life. If you know me well, or if you listen to my words and read my writings, you know this to be true. I’m comfortable in the sadness. It’s a part of me, it’s a part of me that has loved more deeply than most can fathom.

I used to think my melancholy demeanor was bad. My mother certainly thought it was. She used to pray that I wouldn’t be so melancholy. She rejected that piece of me, so I tried my best to hide it from her for years.

As I enter into conversation after conversation, it’s dawned on me how much insight melancholy provides. It’s become a favorite part of myself — a piece of myself I can finally freely accept.

I think the concept of melancholy scares people. Our society is so afraid of pain, but it’s this pain-avoidance that results in horrific atrocities. People fear their sorrow, so turn it into anger instead. Unchecked anger produces strife, dissonance, and murderous behavior. Avoided sorrow creates depression, mental illness, and unavoidable pain.

We’re all a little sad. We’re all a little melancholy. Denying that reality creates a disillusionment with our souls, and all disillusionments must break. Sometimes we break our own delusions, sometimes they break us instead.

Week 40

This sadness sits comfortably in my chest, cavernous in my heart. It’s poignant darkness and chill courses through my body and sometimes escapes from my eyes, but most of the time it stirs beneath the surface ever-present and ever demanding I acknowledge it and tend to it.

This sorrow upholds me, it caresses me and comforts me. Sorrow is love’s winter: we experience sorrow because we love. It’s love gone cold, love that’s missing its object of affection, love that persists after loss.

I’ve ponder the irony of 40 weeks since my brother said “Nine months, that’s how long it takes for a baby to be born” last week. Instead, no babies, just reminders of death everywhere. In this Easter season of budding life, our days are shrouded in death. Life and babies and joy and resurrection, only to be left motherless and childless and filled with death.

What are we, we children with no mothers?

It’s love that is eternal, it’s memory that crosses the bounds of time. The dead exist vividly in our minds and in our memories, and our love for them connects us when their bodies have returned to the earth.

Emotions are, eternal, uncontrollable, inevitable, and inherent. Emotions may make us feel trapped or elated, delighted or dismayed. Feelings aren’t the problem. Emotions are not positive or negative, they or not bad or good. Some feelings are painful, some are delightful, some give heart palpitations. There is no good or bad here, there is simply the human experience and the emotions that allow you to embody the depth of the universe.

Nothing is wrong with your feelings. Nothing is wrong with you. Feelings/emotions indicate what is and isn’t important, what we do and don’t like, what is and isn’t okay. Emotions demand to be felt, acknowledged, and tended to. Pretending they don’t exist doesn’t help. Punishing oneself for their existence doesn’t help. Minimizing them doesn’t help.

Sadness, anger, grief, anxiety, and a litany of other emotions belong to you. They are part of you, they are kind indicators of your experience and they must be tended to, given a seat at the table, brought before a trusted community, and validated. It’s in safety and acknowledgment that we begin to heal.

Yes, this sadness sits with me. Yes, this pain washes over me. I deeply feel all that is not right in my life because none of this is okay.

Mothers aren’t supposed to leave their babies.

Grandparents aren’t supposed to exploit their children and sue their grandchildren.

Aunts aren’t supposed to destroy families.

Churches aren’t supposed to act like their staff member’s life was a stain on their reputation, and punish her family in the process.

Brothers aren’t supposed to cut their lives short.

Stigmatization of suicide survivors isn’t supposed to exist.

But all these things happen, and the only way to heal from it is to acknowledge how much it isn’t okay and to find true support.

Your feelings are not a curse, they are meant to protect you and guide you into tender and caring spaces.

So, I sit with my sadness and I allow it to comfort me. I allow it to teach me what I need to feel whole in my world that is so broken. Emotions take us where words cannot reach: I free my sadness to take whatever form it needs, and I free myself to heal from incommunicable hurts.

40 weeks of death, so many decades of life. Oh, how strange are these numbers and milestones that mar us.

Week 34

I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day, and I attribute most of that to my parents. They celebrated one another and each of us kids: Mom gave gifts to the boys, and Dad gave a gift to me every Valentine’s Day until I got married. When I lived with them, Dad would leave a gift outside my bedroom door to greet me in the morning. It’s a great way to raise one’s kids because it made the holiday special from the beginning. I never minded being single on Valentine’s Day. I love getting to celebrate love, whether my own or someone else’s. I love the hearts and the pink and red and the genuine giddiness and galentines, too! Sure, hallmark and corporations push the holiday but hey, I love any excuse to celebrate Scott. I love opportunities to do something special for my love, and Valentine’s Day provides just that!

Buuuut… Losing my mother to suicide changes everything I knew about love. Abandoned by my mother, rejected by her family, shunned by the majority of her church leadership, and my parents’ marriage nullified by her death— four institutions that were once steady in my life, irrevocably destroyed. Three groups that made the contentious decision to harm me via violent action and lethal passivity, and one marriage that created a family obliterated.

What is love, if not something that shatters you?

As I’ve written before, you can’t feel a mother’s love from the grave.

The last fabrics of security slowly tear from me. It’s fortunate I married before Mom died — I’m not sure I would believe in anything concrete enough to marry after she passed, and I’m quite thankful for my husband.

Like any couple, Scott I do our best to create and build our own love, and I try my hardest not to fear the possibility of every form of love slipping from my fingers.

There’s a pendulum in my mind that swings between the people I never thought I’d lose and the people I am amazed showed up.

Those who know deep pain speak a language entirely foreign to those who don’t lean in. Empathetic witnesses can learn this language with study and exposure, though they speak it with a distant accent.

Not everyone can show up, and that’s okay. Everyone can show love. Love marks people: it can heal them and brighten them, unrequited love can mar them, the absence of love can destroy them.

My father and my surviving two brothers remain a chain of unbroken and unwavering dedication towards each other, for now. I will always fear another suicide in our family — odds for repeated suicide increase dramatically after one suicide in the nuclear family. With two in mine, we survivors are 600% more likely to end our lives — but, we four survivors have been incredibly supportive towards one another.

Aside from these four, I remind myself that it’s the people who have chosen to show up time and time again that have aided in my support and healing. It’s the “aunt” and “uncle” I didn’t realize weren’t related to us that have become more family to me that my genetic relatives. It’s the friends that have shown up when siblings have checked out. It’s the Christian [and non-Christian] community disconnected from any one church that came together when my [past two] churches stigmatized us. It’s the people that weren’t necessarily “supposed to” be there who have shown up the most in my life, and this isn’t an uncommon phenomenon. We all know the saying “Friends are the family you choose.”

I don’t write any of this to bash my mother’s family or her church, and I don’t want people to weaponize my words against either party. There has been enough hurt, and it’s 2026: people have nearly unlimited resources, cell phones, and endless ways to reach out to one another. If they wanted to fix things, they would. It’s been eight months since my mom died — they don’t want to fix things, and additional [well-meaning] people getting involved will not change that. Sometimes the most loving thing one can do is let go. So, I let go of them. I release any hope of healing or restoration. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t, but realistically I haven’t needed them to come this far.

Sometimes we are forced to create meaningful and beautiful lives without the people that were supposed to be there for all of it, and sometimes it’s because of death while other times it’s because pain separates the living.

To those who have shown up, thank you. I see you, I love you 💙. To those who can’t show up or chose not to show up, I love you, too. Take care, be well. Pursue healing and love.

The point is — this is what it’s like to survive suicide. A whole world erodes, and the roots left turn out to be beautiful and complex and mangled in grief.

The best people come to tend to and to water these roots, and one day new life and new dreams will bloom from what they have cared for. Above all, love each other deeply. Love heals a multitude of sorrows.