A dear friend of mine’s daughter committed suicide several days ago. I didn’t know her well. She lived with her other parent, who I met a couple of times but also didn’t know well. I have found myself terribly saddened by this young woman’s inability to see a brighter future, to carry on until things get better, to ask for and accept help when it seems nothing will help. But I’ve somehow managed to make it about me. How much I do not want to go to the wake because it’s going to be uncomfortable and awful. For me. I have to go or be perceived as a “bad friend”. Can’t have that! When can I go so as to spend the least time feeling uncomfortable while still being a “good friend”. I’m finding it hard to just suck up my discomfort and be there for a friend who is feeling so much more than discomfort. Anguish, pain, loss, despair. A mother’s deepest grief, a pain that will lessen but never leave. It is always startling that the world does not revolve around me. And how much of the universe’s gifts, both good and bad, I have been deprived of because there was some discomfort involved. As I write this, dreading the task in front of me, I know that whatever is running through my head and heart doesn’t matter one bit. I can acknowledge it, but not pay it more heed than that. Because not everything is about me.

Woman Praying carynjune
In memory of Joy