Left Behind

I came across this site while looking up suicide rates in 2014.  I read through some of the posts, and decided I’d post my story.  Although I’ve never attempted suicide, the thought is all to familiar to me.  The thought of committing suicide has crossed my mind numerous times.  I don’t know how intentional the thought was to actually commit, more of a lingering what if?  Death is inevitable, inevitable for everyone.  I’ve endured many losses in my 28 years.  Some family, most of them friends.  Some to accidents, and others at their own will.  I never really thought too much about what happens to a persons soul after they take their own life.  I’m catholic, and as you all probably already know in my religion if a person takes their own life it is a mortal sin.  Thus condeming them to purgatory, or hell.  I use to think suicide was for the weak minded, the cowards who couldn’t look past their own shelfish emotions/feelings and see the bigger picture.  Thats not the case anymore.

My best friend, my confidant, the one person I could talk to and truly felt comfortable with enough to pour my emotions, thoughts, & feelings out to that really understood me took his own life in Feburary of 2014. The person I’d stay up with for hours just laying in bed talking, and giving each other advice about the opposite sex. The only person who truly knew me, the one I knew would always be around no matter what was going on is now gone.  He left me behind.  Left me here to try and sort through all of the emotions, feelings, and unanswered questions I had.  The day he took his life was just another ordinary day.  We talked on the phone, and he was coming by to pick something up but never showed.  I knew something wasn’t right.  The last text I received was “headed your way.”  I waited and waited and got angry at him because I had a final to take and I called his phone 10 times with no answer and text to say I couldn’t wait anymore………  No response.  I found out later that night that he had taken his own life.  In that hour from his text to mine my life changed forever.  I kept replaying our phone conversation from that morning in my head over and over.  Had I missed your cry for help?  Was there something I could of said to change your mind? What if I would of said this, or done that………. A month or more previous we were sitting outside talking on my balcony and that was the first time he had mentioned the thought of suicide crossing his mind.  My heart sank.  Promise me I said, that you will call me if you ever feel the urge or contemplate this again.  He promised me…… 

I now know that instead of going to hell for the act of taking his own life, that Zack was living in hell.  His own hell on earth.  I truly believe now that the people who commit suicide are living in their own hell on earth.  Zack wasn’t a selfish person, he was a giver, a lover, a friend, a son, a brother, and most importantly a father.  Suicide for Zack was a release from the emotional chains that held him down.  I often ask him how he could of thought I’d be ok without him?  How he could just leave me knowing there was no one here to get me through this.  He would of been the one I turned to.  I no longer believe people who take their own life go to purgatory or hell.  I believe our God is forgiving, and He knows the pain we endure.  I believe Zack was welcomed into His kingdom with open arms.  Free from all chains holding him down.  I wish more than anything though that I could speak to him one last time.  There were so many things I forgot to say face to face.