Everything Happens for a Reason

“I guess everything happens for a reason. With love, goodbye.” These are the last lines found in the suicide note of my close friend Melissa Cameron who died nearly five years ago. Melissa and I were close friends in high school with a common struggle, we both suffered with extreme depression and thoughts of suicide, and although our friendship was originally formed on much lighter principals, it quickly turned into a relationship based on secrecy and what we considered to be “support.” Due to our suicidal tendencies, sharing ideas on different ways to kill ourselves became normal conversation, and we eventually made an agreement that we would not stand in each other’s way if one of us decided to commit suicide.

Melissa ended up attempting suicide three times the summer of our sophomore year, but after getting caught the third time she was hospitalized and then put into a mental health facility. Out of fear that she would get institutionalized again if she tried something that didn’t work, Melissa became more determined than ever to succeed in killing herself when we started school in the fall.

“It’s fate,” Melissa said to me as we sat on the floor of my bedroom the day before her death. My house happened to be right next to some train tracks, and Melissa had decided that this was how she was going to kill herself, so she wanted to come over to plan things. We told our parents we were studying French, but in reality we were discussing everything from how exactly she was going to kill herself to who was going to come to her funeral. Melissa was convinced that very few people would show up and made me promise that I would attend and would not forget her after she was gone. These things were not difficult to agree to, for I had every intention on attending her funeral and absolutely no plans to forget her, but what Melissa asked next made me stop and think for a few seconds. “So, are you going to watch?” This was definitely NOT on my list of things to do concerning Melissa’s suicide, and I explained to her that I really wasn’t planning on being present when it happened, but I could see by the look on her face that that was not the response she was looking for. She told me she just didn’t want to have to be alone when she died, and so I had the choice of either watching her die, or letting her die alone. I liked neither one of those options.

The following night Melissa came by my house and waited for a train to pass by. She spoke to me briefly through my bedroom window with a light tone of voice that held no fear or sadness for what was about to happen. I heard a train whistle blow about an hour later and I looked out the window to see Melissa give her life away without as much as shedding a tear over the matter, and while I was not phased initially because of my own ailing mental state, nothing could have prepared me for the wave of emotions that came with the fall out after her death.

For about a month after Melissa died I managed to convince quite a few people that I knew nothing of her suicide, but when Melissa’s aunt showed up at my house holding Melissa’s cellphone with every message we sent the night of her death still on it, everything changed. I was pulled out of public school and put on a twenty-four hour suicide watch. Never have I lost so much in such a short span of time. Melissa was gone, all of my friends seemed to disappear, the hours I had spent getting into a rigorous academic program were wasted. There were many days during this time where I would have gladly ended my life had it not been for two things; the first thing being the unconditional love that was shown to me by Melissa’s aunt. The day Mel’s aunt showed up at my house, I thought she had come to try and press charges against me over what had happened, but quite to my surprise, she had actually come to try and save my life. She was so concerned after reading Melissa’s messages that she drove over to make sure I was still alive and well. She called me constantly for months after we initially met and continually told me how proud she was that I was moving forward. I had never witnessed such selfless love up until this point, and her love for me made me want to fight. The second thing that kept me going was seeing the vast amount of people that were hurt by the choice Melissa made. I know she thought that by taking her life she was really only hurting herself, but in reality the amount of people that were hurt is uncountable.  Because of this, my goal is to never hurt people by committing such a selfish act, but to instead try and save as many lives as I can by using my story to encourage others and love them the way Melissa’s aunt loved me. And with this calling in mind, I believe that everything truly does happen for a reason.