Ultimate Betrayal

It’s been almost 7 weeks since I last saw your face. It feels like time is still standing still. I am not sure how to grieve. They say it’s different for everyone and that is true. Every day is different. Some moments are good and some moments are really bad. I never know which moment I will have next. Over the last 3 weeks I have poured myself into making a difference in the lives of others and showing everyone that the stigma behind mental illness needs to stop. People keep asking me one thing, do you know why? Did she leave a note?  I have no freaking clue why and no she didn’t leave a note. But I didn’t see that she was struggling. I didn’t know that she was facing something that she didn’t think she could change or fix. She had lost all hope.   She knew that she was loved. If I didn't love her as much as I do, I would prolly stay in bed forever and die of a broken heart. I have been working on so many things to bring awareness to the area and so many things to help teenagers. I told myself that her life would matter. That she would never be forgotten. As long as I am living, her life would be honored. From raffles, to walks, to bracelets, to T-shirts-we are trying it all. My biggest challenge was the SM South school district. I am mad at the things that were said and things that were emailed to me. Top 3 things you should never write in a letter to a grieving parents-SMS takes the cake on that. Shawnee Mission District was already sued for lacking in preventing suicide.  It angers me that the school will not put her picture up in the hallway. Why don’t you take some of the funding the school gets from her from her IEP and buy the damn thing. The school gets funding for gifted programs and children like Sara was in. I am sure that they can afford it since she won’t be there this year. So the real question is how am I doing? How does one get up in the morning? I am sad all the time.  It doesn’t stop but you find things that keep you breathing. I have a constant pain in my chest that never goes away. I could be ok one minute and then a wave of sadness hits me from behind smack in the heart.  Sometimes you can feel them building and building, those are the worst for me. They are the worst because I spend so much effort controlling them that when they break through, it’s truly when I have nothing left to hold them back.  Most of the time, it’s out of nowhere.  I bare my soul and pain to the world. I am not ashamed of crying. Crying shows how great my loss is because I loved her so much. It’s hard when it builds and builds because you are forced back to that night that forever turned your life upside down. You are unprepared as you were that night for what is about to happen. Before that night I lived a normal life. Bad things only happen to others. Not me! Those things happen to people on TV, not someone like me. I felt that I had suffered enough in my life, I had paid my dues, everyone I have ever loved was taken from me at a young age…this could not be true. Then the tidal wave finally hits you and you are left drowning but you are forced to keep swimming. You are there but you are not there. It’s so hard to focus on things. You feel like everyone is abandoning you. You worry all the time. I mean worry like deep to the core worry.  You want to sleep in hopes to escape the nightmares but being asleep doesn’t make them stop either. My dreams that I remember contain water and her. Everyone has water in them. It may be because that is the first thing I heard when I found her. Water is not my friend; it haunts my days and my nights. The first dream it was like a tsunami. The 2nd dream over the weekend that had her in it..I remember hugging her and holding on to her as tight as I could. She was a younger her, not the 16 year old who took her life. But a happy child in my arms. Once again there was water, it was like the ground opened up, to a running river of fury and ate my car. Why my car was in the yard, I have no clue. Why every dream that I have with her there is water, no clue again. The next dream was reliving that day but this time I went to her room, where I found 4 letters. One with my name on it but when I woke up, there was no sign of the letters. Still no answers. Still no understanding as to why she left me in this world feelings abandoned. It hurts to feel like you give everything for someone and they choose to end their lives. Hurt...it’s like a firework exploding in your chest, over and over. It never stops hurting, it’s a constant wound that gets reopened over and over. You try to find things that will make it stop hurting for just one minute just one little moment. Losing someone to suicide feels like the ultimate betrayal.