During all of this tragedy I am reminded of compassion and love that Sara not only gave to others but people show me and her all the time. It means a lot when someone reaches out or sends a favorite memory or picture I don't have of her. Recently part of a class assignment was to write about something that change your life. Her friend is brave and taking a stand to break the silence. She is just a young adult like Sara with emotions and feelings. Now she carries heartbreak and an emptiness that no one can fill. While we are focusing on suicide awareness week please remember that this doesn't just go away. We can't just stop talking about it, like it will go away. Every 40 seconds someone attempts and completes ending their life. Its gone from number 8 leading cause to number 2 since 2011. I am not willing to gamble anymore lives, are you? Please know the impact you have on people and how much people impact you. Sara's choice does not define who she was as a person. I won't allow it. It was one moment of a thousand moments in her very short life. 16 years and 9 days-what she did in those days matters and who she touched mattered..Not what she did in a few hours of one day. She should be remember for who she was to us all; not for having a bad day and allowing herself to be tunneled into temptation. I want to thank Gabby for allowing me to post this homework assignment. It shows truly how one persons actions, can turn someones world upside down. Its beautiful and amazes the strength it took to write this as a teenager growing into a young adult.
Please feel free to show love and support by sharing my blog. If it can save just one of your friends
kids or yours, then it was worth the 20 seconds it took to hit share. Because in 20 seconds that I took to walk down the hallway and open my bedroom door...my entire world came shattering down. 20 seconds-doesn't see like a lot but it can change your entire world before you even realize.
To "Bobbitha"
The phone call telling me she died lasted only a minute.
Only 1 minute. 60 seconds. 60,000 milliseconds. It doesn’t seem like all that much when you put it in perspective. There’s 1,440 minutes in a day, 525,949 minutes in a whole year. If one was to say your entire hand was a years worth of minutes, then a single minute is just a speck of dust on the tip of your pinky finger, if that. But all it takes is a minute for one’s entire world to be thrown in disarray.
The night she died that phone calls one minute stretched into a lifetime. It had only been a few sentences, broken by uncontrollable sobs of my friend delivering the news. The words refused to stick in my head. It was like throwing a rubber ball at a wall, it just deflected back at you. There’s been an accident. Sob. She’s gone Gabby. Sob. She’s gone. Sob. I love you. Sob.If you need anything ask. Dissolves into tears. Goodbye.
I had a friend over and for a long time all we could do was hold each other. She cried against me, her tears soaking deep into the shoulder of my cotton t-shirt. I didn’t cry. The only thing I could do was say that it didn’t feel real.
Some would try to say what I was feeling was numb, but it’s much more than that. It wasn’t being deprived the power of feeling, it was the lack of feeling there at all. I remember thinking: I am nothing. I am air.
And more than anything else I wanted to float away. Up above the houses and the trees, farther up than any skyscraper could dream of reaching. I wanted to wave goodbye to the planes as I soared past them. I wanted to reach space and let it destroy me. Let myself suffocate, swell, and burn until there was nothing.
In those infinite minutes where I felt nothing at all her tight embrace was the only thing keeping me tethered to earth.
Her name is Sara.
No that’s not quite right anymore. Her name was Sara. Past tense. Funny how one forgets such simple things as changing the tense after someone’s gone. It’s in these small moments that the force of what happened really hits you. The first time you realize it’s was instead of is, had instead of has, loved instead of loves. It was that moment, nothing more than a simple grammatical error, that sent me to my knees.
I was outside. It was dusk, the sun just disappearing into the trees across from my house. The grass was still wet with the afternoon rain, the dampness and mud soaking my bare knees. Clumps of grass were held tight within my fists as sobs overtook me, stealing all of my breath. A hot molten mess of anguish and rage seared through my veins, making me want to scream until I had no voice.
This is how my parents found me. Once again more than anything else I wanted to float away. Up above the houses and the trees, farther up than any skyscraper could dream of reaching. I wanted to wave goodbye to the planes as I soared past them. I wanted to reach space and let it destroy me. Let myself suffocate, swell, and burn until there was nothing.
In those infinite minutes when I felt all too much, their arms were the only things keeping me tethered to this earth.
I remember sitting at the celebration of life, dressed in shades of purple and black, like a bruise. Which was exactly how it felt, with her gone, and seeing her pictures. Sara was the bruise I carried with me, and only now has it started to fade with the passage of time.
When you lose someone, life becomes a tightrope. There you are, suspended, a thousand feet in the air. Below you, only darkness, a darkness so deep you lose all sense of direction and purpose. Above you, a cloudy sky. In front of you, a future where you can carry on without it aching every moment of the day. But to get there, you have to cross.
One foot in front of the other, inch by inch, you must move forward. You might teeter a bit as you walk, and sometimes you may feel like you’re going to fall into that abyss, because it’s all too much to bear continuing much longer. But you must carry on, let that become your mantra. Carry on. Carry on. Carry on.
Then one day you’ll finally make it, and everything will be okay. You’ll still miss that person, that won’t ever change, but you’ll be able to deal with it. Though their life has ended, you have the opportunity to continue yours, so don’t waste it.
I’ll see you on the other side. "Gabbitha"
Today I passed out Hope and Smile Pop-up cards that I bought last week to Sara's school. Each one you open gives a message of encouragement or a little joy, they are very neat. Jason and I found them one night when we couldn't face coming home without her. I came home and ordered directly from the company rather than the store so it would be cheaper. Sara would have liked that I saved money! I wanted to go to the school with someone to give them in her honor. I wanted to give the kids something that would encourage them and make a difference like Sara did. We all know that I can't bake like she did so this was safer. lol I plan on passing them out over and over all over the area in her honor.
Please remember that this is a real story with real people. This is not a movie that you are watching. This is someone's real hell that they are walking through. This was my daughter who took her last breathe before I did. Its not just going to go away. It not just teens either but friends, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends...Have the conversation with people. What is the worst that will happen? You prove that you are strong enough to make a difference and be the cure? You save someone from taking their life. You save yourself from taking your own life. You choose to live! Sara's story is as much about having the conversation with your kids again and again as it is teenagers, kids, people speaking up if you are hurting. There is no reason to suffer in silence.
Suicide can be cured if we give our families and our children the right tools. Today I witnessed people pushing others to get back to life or back to their regular schedules or trying to change the subject. I see more and more that people just want to tell you to move on with your day rather than offer a listening ear. Like that is going to help the inside of your head or what your heart is feeling like inside. Imagine the most pain you have ever felt then multiply it by a million while you are told to go about your day.That needs to change, we need to arm ourselves with coping skills and ways to encourage people to talk. Teach our families how to handle grief, sadness, anger, happiness, having anxiety, being off, feeling not like the others, or any thing else they may encounter. If someone would have told me to go back to work and get on with my day, I would have exploded. When it comes to people's lives, I believe nothing is off the table.
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