Your Death Matters

The theme of suicide has been ever present in my life as of late. It’s been whispered in some cases and shouted in others. Each case baffling, a catalyst for questions; questions that won’t get answered this side of Heaven.

Did they know how loved they were?

Was there more we could have done?

Why didn’t they just reach out to me?

When dealing with depressed/suicidal people we constantly remind them that their life matters. We beg them to see how precious they are, how wonderful their presence is and how much this world needs them.

We never talk about how their death would impact us, though. I assume we shy away from this kind of language because it implies a sense of responsibility on a person who is already overburdened. We don’t want to seemingly make the victim a perpetrator.

And yet I wonder what would happen if included this vantage point to our desperate pleas for life. What if we didn’t just tell them how precious their life is, but also reminded them how devastated we would be if they left us in this way. Not as a way of guilting them into suffering through life, but as a way of honest vulnerability that shows the full spectrum of their actions.

I was confronted with this reality a few seasons ago. Though not blatantly suicidal, I was certainly trending towards such a desire. I had lost much of my concern for health, my future, and my well-being. A friend at work noticed this shift and decided to confront me on it. She pulled me into the conference room and soon after burst into tears. She relayed to me how she had been dealing with other personal family issues with similar aspects. She wondered, out loud, why everyone she loved so much seemed only bent on destroying themselves.

And that’s when it hit me. My death, though it might bring me peace, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There is a trail of brokenness I leave in my wake as I go. Friends, family, loved ones, all left behind to pick up the pieces I shattered. It was then that I realized that not only was my life precious, but my death was too. It wasn’t something to take lightly. We all die someday. But suicide feels more personal than cancer. It’s obviously more intentional than a car accident. And because it is, its impact is different.

Although a reality I didn’t want to face, it was true. When I decided to have friends, to be loved and to love other people, I also decided that my life would affect theirs and their life would affect mine. Meaning that my actions no longer just affect me, they affect those who love me too.

Please hear me, as I know this can get misconstrued. I am not looking to blame depressed people for being depressed, or to shame suicidal people for being suicidal. As someone who has wrestled and will inevitably wrestle again with such feelings, I know firsthand that these feelings are not voluntary. They are not a choice to feel. Some seasons lift easier than others. Some seasons last longer than others. And some never fully go away but simply thin out to a low hum that we wake up into every day. This is true.

What is also true is that people care if I die. People will be affected if I take my life. My family will carry baggage I never meant to give them, my friends will always wonder if they could have done more to help. When I was confronted with the grief that my friend felt if I were to die, while I was still alive, I got a glimpse into the pain my decision would cause. And I didn’t want that.

I can’t choose to live for other people. At the end of the day, I have to choose life for me. I have to decide my life is precious and worth fighting for. It’s a decision only I can make. But being able to see how it would affect at least one person changed me. It changed my perspective on my decision. It didn’t take the pain away. It didn’t make things easier. It didn’t make the lonely nights less lonely, the tearful nights less wet. But it did push me to get help. It did push me to ask for assistance. It aided in my own desire to want to live. To choose to live. My friend, through her beautiful tear-stained face, reminded me that my death was just as precious as my life. That my life mattered so much; and because of that, so did my death.