Not everyone wants to feel alive, they consider themselves born backwards. Being born in the 4th stage, the feeling of being born backwards, the feeling of not living, while living is like swimming through tar. It almost feels worse when its someone you know and love going through it.
As I lay is my bed listening to her toss, turn, shake and whimper. I could hear how terrified she was. Terriefied to be in her own skin and it hurt that I could do nothing about it. I just sat and watched her cry out in pain from the agony of living on. She had lost her brother to cancer and loosing Tyler was hard on everyone, but, Aubrey couldn’t handle it anymore. He kept her grounded and I wished to help her more and more. As I waited for the sun to rise and waited for her to awake, I couldn’t help but wonder what she was really afraid of . Could it be as MLK Jr. Put it: “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live”? Could she be afraid of death as Tyler was, but, still feel it neccassary that she could not go on anymore. I ran over and over what I was to say to her “why are you so afraid of the future?”, “Why is it so important for you to stop living, you brother would want you to be happy as do I and your family”. Everything I thought of to say I couldn’t; it was such a sensitive topic I was afraid of what theat outcome would be. I woke her up and we dragged ourselves out of bed,
“Good morning” I said trying to sound hopeful to start a positive day;
“Is it a good morning, I don’t think it is”.
I could feel the day growing colder and colder. We proceeded to prepare for school in silence. Aubrey had decided that school was pointless and had skipped every day since winter break had let out. I proceeded to school alone.
After school ended I walked to Aubrey’s house. It was alarming to find several ambulances and her Mother crying outside, her dad standing still and looking as if he had seen death itself. He had, Aubrey successfully committed suicide. Nothing was ever the same again. Everything in our quite little neighborhood had become more quitequitter, every winter day had become colder and every bit of love I had had in my heart had frozen over. I had lost so much in the past couple of years I couldn’t contain my anger, I couldn’t feel myself anymore, I couldn’t handle being who I was and knowing that I did not help Aubrey. But I got help, I didn’t want to just stop as Aubrey had, I wanted to survive and live through my fears. I got help. I knew that I needed to survive this for Aubrey, for my family and for the friends I had, they wanted me to be there as much as I wanted Aubrey backI have that acted as me in Aubrey’s situation.
After lots of different anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications and lots of therapy I got through my darkest of time, I survived what I had witnessed and what I had felt. I got through and I knew how to handle the situation again, I felt like a new person. Every time my mom could see I was having a hard day, where nothing was helping and I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed, she would tell me
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” It is a quote by Albert Einstein. I had memorized this and had always thought of it when I was feeling down.
It made me feel better to know that I could survive through something as hard as I did. I still think about Aubrey every day and still miss her. But I have to carry I have to survive for Aubrey and for Tyler and for everyone that I love as much as I loved Aubrey.