Appreciation

For the past few days I have struggled to find something to write about.  It’s not that I didn’t have ideas. Ideas I had in spades: politics, friendship, graduate school, college admissions, the Super Bowl…I just couldn’t decide what to say about what.

Last night, something tragic happened.  The older brother of one of my best friends committed suicide.  I don’t know the details and I’m not sure I want to.  This is a deeply personal thing and I don’t want to intrude.  However, when I found out about this when I got to campus today, I felt like I just had to write something down.

I’m sure that after a little while I will go back to my confusion with dating and irritation at people for cutting me off in traffic.  Today, though, I’m introspective.  I never knew my friends brother all that well, but I felt that I did since I would trade sibling stories with her all the time.  “Oh, my gosh, they did WHAT?!” and “Wow.  What do you even SAY to that? What were they even THINKING?” were common questions we asked each other.  We would laugh at our siblings (and ourselves) and trade stories, both good and bad, to the point where I felt as though I knew her siblings pretty well and she knows mine.

This is a strangely disorienting event for me.  I know that any death in the family can really hit hard (one of my uncles died a few months ago and I still remember exactly where I was standing when I found out that my grandpa had passed away).  This one seems different somehow.  Maybe because it wasn’t an accident or some freak occurrence.  It wasn’t even something that could have necessarily been prevented, but the idea of someone taking their own life chills me to the core.

I have had some very low points in my life.  At one point I actually wondered what would happen if I were to die (a question that really stressed me out because I didn’t want my parents to have to go through the hassle of dealing with my cluttered apartment).  However, even at my worst, I have never considered suicide a legitimate option for myself.  To imagine someone being in so much pain that they would actually kill themselves blows my mind. 

My heart aches for my friend and her family.  To have someone you love be in so much pain that they want to leave this world must be one of the most heart-wrenching experiences to have.  To know that, even if you didn’t always get along, your brother or son or father or whatever will never be around again to mess up your hair or make you roll your eyes in exasperation…I don’t know what that could possibly be like.  In fact, I’m tearing up right now at just the thought of anything happening to my brother.

Despite all the times where we didn’t get along (see: all of high school) and how jealous we always got of each other and how we always thought the other person had it SOOOO much better than we did…It’s funny how those things seemed like such a big deal growing up.  I remember that one of my biggest problems with my brother was that he got to see a rated R movie before I did even though he is three years younger than I am.  I would get upset because he always made friends with people, even when we were camping in the middle of nowhere.  He would get upset because all of his teachers would say, “Oh! You’re her younger brother!”  He also rarely got to be the first to do anything and his grades were never quite as good as mine had been.

I made sure to call him this afternoon to tell him that if he ever feels so sad and without hope that he even thinks for half a second about taking his own life that he should call me.  I will drive over the worst mountain passes in the middle of a blizzard to be there for him.  I don’t care what he’s done (or hasn’t done), he’s my brother and I want him to be around for a really long time.  After all, if I ever end up having kids, they will need a cool uncle to make up for their stick-in-the-mud mother.  They’ll need someone to encourage them to be crazy and express themselves without fear of judgment.  They will need someone who can tell them, “Don’t worry about it.  Your mother did the same dumb stuff when she was your age.”

I hope that all of you that have family give them a call to let them know how much you appreciate them.  Even if it’s just for a few minutes, perhaps that’s all it will take to make them feel loved and appreciated.  I know that I will be calling both my parents tonight (and probably my brother again).