Chapter 1
For Those Who Were Left Behind
There is a particular kind of silence that comes after losing someone to suicide.
It isn't the ordinary kind of silence.
It is the silence of a phone that will never ring again.
The silence of a bedroom that no longer belongs to anyone.
The silence that settles over a family when everyone has run out of words.
And sometimes, it is the silence inside your own heart.
You may find yourself asking questions that have no answers.
Why?
Didn't they know I loved them?
Could I have done something?
Why didn't they tell me?
What did I miss?
You may be angry.
You may feel guilty.
You may feel relieved that their suffering has ended and then hate yourself for feeling relieved.
You may laugh at an old memory and suddenly feel guilty for being happy.
You may have days when you think you're finally okay, only to hear a song or smell a familiar scent and find yourself crying all over again.
If that happens, please remember:
You are not doing grief wrong.
There is no correct way to mourn someone you loved.
Some days you will carry their memory gently.
Other days, it will feel like carrying a mountain.
Both are okay.
You don't have to understand why they made the choice they made in order to love them.
You don't have to forgive yourself for something that was never yours to control.
You were their sibling.
Their parent.
Their child.
Their friend.
You were someone who loved them.
You were not responsible for fighting every battle they never told you about.
And you could not be expected to know everything happening inside another person's heart.
So please don't measure your love by the outcome.
Their death did not mean you didn't love them enough.
Their pain was not proof that you failed them.
And their final decision does not erase every beautiful moment that came before it.
Remember their laugh.
Remember their terrible jokes.
Remember the annoying things they did.
Remember the holidays, birthdays, arguments, adventures, and ordinary afternoons.
Remember the person who existed before the tragedy.
Because they were never only the way they died.
They were someone's favorite person.
Someone's child.
Someone's sibling.
Someone's best friend.
Someone who mattered.
And they still matter.
There will come a day when you laugh without immediately feeling guilty.
There will come a morning when you realize you went several hours without crying.
There may even come a moment when remembering them makes you smile before it makes you sad.
When that happens, let yourself smile.
You aren't forgetting them.
You are carrying them differently.
Grief doesn't ask you to stop loving someone.
It asks you to learn how to love them in their absence.
So take your time.
Cry when you need to.
Talk about them when you want to.
Say their name.
Look at the photographs.
Tell the stories.
Light the candle.
Visit the place that reminds you of them.
And when you are ready, allow yourself to live.
Not because you have forgotten.
Not because they no longer matter.
But because your life still matters, too.
There is no betrayal in finding happiness again.
You can miss them and still laugh.
You can love them and still fall in love.
You can remember them and still make new memories.
You can carry grief and still carry hope.
And if today is one of the days when getting through the next hour feels like enough, then let that be enough.
You don't have to figure out the rest of your life today.
Just take the next breath.
Then the next.
And the next.
Somewhere out there is another person sitting quietly with an empty chair beside them, wondering if anyone could possibly understand.
Tell them:
I understand.
You are not alone.
Your grief is real.
Your love was real.
And you are allowed to keep going.
The people we lose may leave this world.
But the love we shared with them doesn't have to leave with them.
We carry it.
In our stories.
In our memories.
In the little pieces of them that became part of who we are.
And perhaps that is how we honor them best—
not by staying forever inside the moment we lost them,
but by carrying their love with us
as we slowly, gently,
learn to live again.
