She died, and I couldn't feel sorry for her. This was no car accident. This wasn't cancer. This was a choice. All of these people trying to hold on for dear life, so that they could see their child's wedding, see their grandchildren born, enjoy life with their partner even if just for another day...all of these people just praying for the health that she had so that they could see more, more of what this world has to offer...and she gave it all up. During morning band practice, my band teacher always said "look around you. People would die to be in your position right now, to be able to walk on the grass under the sun." She took the luxuries of life and health for granted. She threw it all away.
She threw it all away for this:
Her friends wondering if she was missing, calling all over the place to find out where she was, fearing and not knowing where she was, who she was with, what could have been happening to her.
Her mom finding the corpse of her 21 year old daughter in her bedroom.
Her family and friends dropping everything to fly in and drive to Orange County to see her one last time.
Her friends all posting on her Facebook page asking her to tell them, to respond to them, telling them it's not true.
Her younger sisters at a funeral, wearing white, being forced to understand what a family tragedy looks like.
I couldn't help feeling like..."You're fuckin selfish."
And then I took a step back, and I wondered, and I still wonder how bad does life have to be to make me want to kill myself...to throw all of it away? Do I have to be absolutely hopeless? Or hopeful for a better place after I'm gone? Is it courage or cowardice to go? To stay? Is it vengeance?...to get back at someone for not caring more or showing more attention? Is it a feeling of "I'll show them"?
I can't imagine what she went through...what it feels like to be at your breaking point...being so sure about giving it all up. I wonder that if she knew how many people she hurt when she left, would she still have chosen the same path? Did she not know? Or is that selfish of me expecting her to live for others?
But in the end, all I have are speculations. I don't know why she did what she did, but all I know is at her funeral, I saw genuine sadness, genuine confusion, genuine guilt, genuine change in their lives.
I keep imaging her mom accomplished after many difficult hours as she gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, smiling that anything is possible, optimistic that she will give this little girl the best life possible, everything she never had. And then I imagine her mom, feeling like a failure, living in that house tainted with her daughter's death, passing by an empty bedroom with a sight that constantly bleeds into her memories. I imagine guilt trickling through her veins every day until the day she dies. I imagine that it would be like someone tearing your chest apart and ripping out your heart. How horrific is it when someone harms your child? How horrific is it when the person you cannot protect your child from is herself?
We were friends, me and her. I can't say we were close, but we were friends. We lived together in the same house for 4 months abroad. I would say we were family actually...she wasn't someone I chose to live with, but she was someone I would support because God had picked it out that way. For some reason, we were two stars plucked out of the sky to live together in the same house at the same time for those 4 months.
I keep thinking...if I had said something differently, if I had noticed she was depressed, if I had sparked some hope in her somehow, if something changed in history, would this story have still played out the same? And in my gut, I feel like if something could have changed, the story would have been different. And I don't know if that something could have been me. I wasn't that close to her, but then again sometimes you don't have to be close to someone to change the course of their lives...you just share that glimmer of hope, that bag of optimism, that sea of support, and sometimes when you least expect it, you strike a cord with them that changes a life.
I try to remember that when I'm around strangers...many of them are your friends and family just waiting to happen.
Her stepfather said she was like a blooming flower, and she gave it all up. The world was at her fingertips. He told us don't ever give up. He told us we have so much to look forward to. He said don't be like her. Don't give all of it up.
Sometimes I fear that one day I will want to give up on life and I fear that one day I will cease to find the activities, the relationships, and the learning to be interesting or intriguing. So I try...I try to keep learning and doing new things and find ways to contribute to the community....my efforts to engage myself in life. And I try to respond to people who want to hang out or spend time with me as best I can because she taught me that life and death hangs on a thread, and that thread can topple over in seconds. So I try....I try to prioritize family and friends because they are more important than money and property, than academic grades, than artificial accomplishments or rewards. Life is like a relationship...you have to make an effort to have a great one.
Sometimes you feel like you're in a dark tunnel by yourself, but there's a light out there if you keep going. If you stop, you cut off your chances of ever getting a glimpse of the light. I haven't found a love that I want to spend the rest of my life with yet. I haven't felt the pain of childbirth yet. I haven't given a toast at my siblings' weddings yet. I haven't become truly financially independent yet. I haven't been sky-diving yet...or bungee jumping. There's a billion places I haven't seen, and billions of people I have not yet had the chance of meeting. When I get sad or lonely, I try to keep all of this in mind ...a wondrous amount of things that life has to offer.
I hold her close to my heart. We weren't that close in her life, but she's dear to my heart because of all the life lessons she has taught me through her death. It's been over 3 years, and I still wonder...the kind of woman she would have grown up to be, what she could have contributed to society, the laughs she could have brought, the hugs she could have given, the advice she would have shared, even the tangerines she would have peeled. Everything was taken away the moment she chose to take the path less traveled. That's the sad part about death. The world misses out on all of this.
A quote from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:
"'When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.'"
-J.Pham
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