A friend of mine played me a song last week called "How do you get that lonely?" by Blaine Larsen and then last night I watched an amazing and beautiful movie called "To Save a Life" and I guess this is my soul's response to these two beautiful and moving pieces of creativity.
Suicide: A Silent Path
I've been there.
Standing on that figurative ledge.
Wishing I had the courage to jump.
Knowing I would never do it.
But mesmirized by the thought nonetheless.
Wondering what would happen?
Who would care?
Would it wake anyone up to the hollowness and loneliness
that lived inside me each day?
Was there any other way to scream for help?
A way that would actually have an outcome,
unlike the silent screaming that had become normal to me over the years?
He asks, "How do you get that lonely?"
I say, it's so much easier than you could possibly think
to lose sight of your own value
of your own worth.
To not be able to find it
but also not know how to ask for help.
When you're taught by the world around you
that your voice isn't important,
that the deep inner essence of who you are
isn't valuable and should be hidden,
when your world tells you these things and you believe them,
that is how you get that lonely.
Your mind tells you people would notice,
people would care,
but your heart asks why?
Why they haven't cared enough in the past,
to have seen anything that has lead up
to these thoughts
to that one moment?
Suicide isn't an act.
It is a path.
It is years if not lifetimes,
of silently screaming for help with no answer.
Years of begging,
of praying,
of trying,
to reach beyond the pain,
and the loneliness,
and the despair.
Years of praying,
that someone will truly see you,
love you,
accept you as you are,
teach you to accept yourself,
and show you that you are worthy
and valued.
Suicide may be one person's act,
but it is a symptom of a much greater societal disease.
A disease of alienation,
of humiliation,
of accepted ignorance,
of selfishness,
of self focus,
of shame,
a lack of recognition
of the humanity within each of us,
a forgotten compassion,
a forgotten love for one another.
It is a disease of passivity and of blame.
"There is nothing I could have done"
"It was their choice, not mine."
In the end both might be true.
After the fact,
blame means nothing.
Unless it wakes you up.
Unless it assists you to look outside of yourself.
To see that there are others,
an infinite number of people in the world,
walking a path toward suicide.
Praying and begging to be helped off of it,
to be told and shown and helped to see,
that they truly are valuable,
that they are worth loving,
that their lives have meaning.
Many of them will be,
like I was,
shown that their value lies within them
that there is a beauty within their soul
that they have a gift to give to the world.
But this takes a person,
a friend,
a family member,
a stranger,
stepping outside of their own struggles,
showing love,
and without judgment,
recognizing the pain in someone else's heart.
So why not let everyone in your life,
know how much you love them,
how much you value and cherish them,
because you never know,
what path they might be silently walking.
