A day I want to forget, but I cant forget Wednesday, December 27, 2017. Just a simple day, going to my dads business for a family lunch. We all decided on Buffalo Wild Wings, we were all laughing around the table making fun of each other for the sauce on our faces, then the mood took a sudden change when my dads face just dropped as he was looking at his phone. He hurried out of the room and asked us kids to join him in the hallway. He began to tell us not breaking eye contact with the floor that our mother might be dead. Next thing I knew I was on the floor screaming. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So much regret, fear and sadness took over my body. I couldn't even stand. I look over at my siblings who are in just as much shock and fear as I was. Tears and shaky hands was all I could see. We weren't sure what to do, we were trying to get answers but living 2 hours away from our mother who was now at The Reading Hospital in Reading PA. and not having contact with people didn't make the situation easier. We all hurried our way to go see our mother in the hospital. Our local family was already at the hospital in tears waiting to break us the news, since they wanted us to arrive safely. We found out that our mother was completely brain dead with no chance of it coming back.

  “Why? What happened? How could this happen” were the only questions that I could seem to think of. My moms boyfriend at the time told us that he went out for a smoke in the garage and he found my mother there. She was hanging from the garage poles. Our hearts were already broken but after hearing that I swear my heart was in a million pieces. After telling us a few different versions of the story he got very weird and jumpy and just up and left the hospital. We right away got a very bad feeling about this. His stories were not adding up and he seemed very weird about the whole topic, but we brushed it under the rug and just spend our time with our mother, the hospital said they were going to keep her hooked up to machines for a few days and test and monitor her to see if there was any chance of any change in her situation. We went back to visit her and the sight was a horrifying and heart breaking sight i will never unsee. Seeing my mother laying in that bed with machines hooked up to her body everywhere. Mascara stains on the her cheeks to show she was crying and was hurting before doing what she did hurt us. So much regret and guilt over took us . We couldn't help but feel some what responsible for not calling her back the day before. Even though it was so hard to deal with we had to keep our heads up and know that this was not our faults and this depression was something she was living with for a long time. Wednesday night we decided to stay at local family so we could go right back Thursday morning.

  Thursday morning, we woke up and made our way to the hospital right away. We spent our day notifying family and my mothers friends of the horrible circumstances and told them that they should come in and say their goodbyes either that night or Friday. There was only 2 people allowed in the room with my mother. So visitors would go back 2 at a time and say there goodbyes and show their love for her. Friday was the day we decided to pull the machines off of her. She was suffering and we know that she wouldn't want to live her life in the vegetated state she was in. She couldn't hear us, see us, talk to us, move, she couldn't do anything. As much as we wanted to just keep her around we knew we couldnt. That wouldn't be fair. Around 8 o’clock friday night we had the doctors pull all the machines off her and make her comfortable so she would go on her own time. Her heart was still going strong so she was going to be taking her last breathe on her own. The doctors told us she would probably pass a few hours after being taken off the machine, so our immediate family stayed in that room with her. It was 1am and she was still going strong, but we were exhausted so we took our rounds watching her and sleeping. Saturday morning, she was still going so strong and all the doctors were amazed. They told us to go eat and they will watch her till we got back, we went and ate as quickly as we could.

The clock hit 1:30pm on Saturday and we could tell the time was soon coming so we used that time to use the bathroom and come back so we would be ready to say goodbye. As soon as we got back we got in our positions holding her and not even a minute later her body started slowing down. She waited, she waited for us to get back to her. At 2:04pm she took her last breath. It was the hardest thing in the world to watch. She didn't deserve to go that way.

There needs to be more suicide awareness in this world. Everyday about 105 people die due to suicide. Suicide is also the 10th leading cause of death in the US for all ages. I want our future generations and even the current ones to work on being better people. Be there for people, never put people down. You never know what a person is dealing with or going through that day. Use the heart you were given to do right rather than wrong. You are worth more than you know. Stay strong.