Monday, April 26, 2010

Damn

A very long time ago, I knew a young woman--younger than I am, but not as much as a decade younger--who was a fireball of emotion and action. Never stopping, always full of energy and huge plans, ready to break down or laugh wildly at a moment's notice, she was smart and strange in good ways. She set out to travel the world, and she did. She could never quite find happiness for long, though, and over the years she became more troubled than I knew. She dropped by and visited with some of us a few times over the last two decades or so, but basically we stopped having contact over twenty years ago.

I didn't get to my personal email today until very late tonight; it was a crazily busy day. When I did, I found a note from a mutual friend that this woman had killed herself a week ago in the country where she had been living.

I'm very sad. I remember the starry-eyed young woman. I remember her determination and her energy. I don't know much of anything about what happened in her life over those many intervening years, but whatever led her to that desperate point, I wish she'd made a different choice. More importantly, I wish she could have constructed a life that didn't lead her to want to die.

Damn.

5 comments:

Cynthia Hyde Abbott said...

I'm sorry for your loss of a friend. Life is a precious gift, and way to short, under any circumstance. I pray this young woman is now at peace.

Todd said...

I don't know what's going on lately. I just lost a friend a week before her 37th birthday. She had stomach pain, and passed away 72 hours later. A close friend told me last night she has MS and my best friend just told me he'll be completely deaf in the next 18 months. We've played music together since youth.

Life is short. I am attempting to live life the best I can and have no regrets. To squeeze every last ounce out of every last day because who knows what will happen tomorrow.

I have this quote by Mae West always in view:

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

Mark said...

I'm sorry for all of those losses, Todd. Good quote, though.

Todd said...

Thanks, Mark. At least I am employed now - in the music licensing industry!

Mark said...

I'm glad to hear that, Todd.

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