Godspeed

I am just learning what others have known for months: A* is gone.

A* was a friend of my aunt whom I've known almost all of my life. A warm and compassionate spirit, she was a nurse. A really kind person. She came from an extremely dysfunctional background, one that involved mental-health issues with which A* struggled, too. She moved to a different state, and lived there. I don't think she worked, or had insurance. Sometimes she would be erratic, hard to find, and my aunt would worry about her. But there were certain things my aunt could count on, like a birthday card. This past year, no card. And when my aunt sent mail to A*'s PO Box, it came back.

What apparently happened is that A* wasn't doing very well, and eventually she just stepped in front of a train and ended her life.

To have known a person when she was whole, when she was giving and kind and had good days, and then to consider what it must have been like inside her brain is very difficult. I'm pained by what she must have gone through, believing that tomorrow would not be better than today, feeling desperate enough to silence that pain once and for all, but also she might have felt bravery or pride for refusing to let it take control of her life, of her mind, finally and forever.

I'm pained when I wonder whether A* would be alive if she had been insured and medicated, if she'd had some community or family where she lived. I'm pained that in finding out what happened well after everyone else, her death is somehow less significant, less tragic. A* was a beautiful person, inside and out, who lived and died all alone. This is a lesser place for her absence.