A life taken

So, a bit of a downer this time around. I was going to ruminate on the Grammy’s, but I found out today that a friend of mine committed suicide. Well, I use the term “friend” a bit loosely here. She was the ex-wife of a good friend. I’ve known her for about 23 years. She came into my life in an unusual way and went out in a way that I wouldn’t have expected. Then again, I haven’t seen her in a few years, so I don’t know what’s been going on with her recently.

I first met her when we were both around the age of 15. Well, I know she was 15 and I think we’re the same age, so I figure I was 15 also. She started dating my brother’s best friend around that time. And she already had a kid, which was totally unfathomable to me at the time. I don’t recall what the circumstances were at the time, but she and her kid came to live with us for a while, I think because her parents kicked her out or something like that. But I always felt she was a bit off, if you know what I mean. She would get dressed up in high heels and mini-skirts just to walk her daughter around the block in her stroller. Not the typical motherly thing to do, me thinks. Her sexuality was a bit uncomfortable for me and my two teenage brothers, and that’s probably why my parents asked her to move out not too soon after she moved in.

But she was with my brother’s best friend, so we all accepted her, to one extent or another. They ended up getting married and having three more kids. I even worked with them to have him adopt her first daughter, but that never happened. She later took to rescuing animals and keeping a bunch of them in their home, which I thought was admirable. Then she went back to school to become, I think, a medical assistant of some sort. The two of them had a falling out with my brother and his wife a few years back and then they ended up moving to Florida for better work opportunities (not necessarily to get away from my brother). That’s when we sort of lost touch with the both of them. At first I would keep in touch with the husband via email, but then that petered out. Over the past few years I haven’t heard much of anything from either of them, except through his sister, who is one of my good friends from grade school. They got divorced some time in the past couple of years, I think.

Today I heard from my brother that this woman hung herself. Totally caught me off guard. You know, it’s one of those things that just doesn’t happen to people I know. I see it on the news or hear about it happening to someone else’s friend or relative, but not anyone I know. I guess she had some psychological problems over the past few years, and the divorce probably didn’t help things.

I called over to my friend’s house (the sister, not the ex-husband), and the oldest daughter of the woman who killed herself answered the phone – the one who lived with us when she was an infant. Again, totally caught me off guard. I knew it was her but didn’t know how to deal with it, so I first asked to speak with my friend (the girl’s aunt – not home) or my friend’s husband (sleeping). So I had to talk to her, which made me uncomfortable, because I’m not good at handling death, and I’m especially not good at talking to someone so directly affected by it. She was a lot more cool with it than I was. I guess it hasn’t hit her yet – that her mom killed herself - but she was rock steady on the phone. Amazing. She said she was looking at pictures of a bunch of us holding her when she was an infant. And that’s how I still picture her, since I haven’t had a lot of contact with her over the years. But she’s all grown up now and, from all reports, she’s turned into a fine young lady. Not quite the mirror image of her mom, and that’s got to be a good thing. I just hope that she, her younger siblings and her father stay strong through this messy situation. I’m not sure how I would have handled this situation at age 23.