A hand-me-down, wrinkled, black dress hangs loosely from my shoulders. My itchy, pilled cardigan does little to prevent goosebumps and raised hairs. A dark cloud forms as I open the door, and hovers over me as I walk to the designated gathering room. It’s a small area, with bone-colored walls, with bouquets, outdated pale-yellow light fixtures, and black wooden chairs lined in rows atop a putrid green carpet. Family and friends gravitate toward each other. There are too many recognizable faces–teachers, my friends; I see that even the gym instructor has briefly retired her gray Nike shorts for black slacks. Rain begins tackling the windowpanes. The funeral director rises from his seat and draws the curtains shut.
August 15, 2017 was a Tuesday. I was 13. My mom and I were helping a family friend, as we often did, by babysitting her two young daughters. I stood in front of my mom, watching over the little ones, as she sat on their couch. Then her phone buzzed with some interrupting, irritating jingle from her pocket. An everyday occurrence, nothing too harrowing, except that my sister could’ve been asking a favor, or maybe my dad couldn’t find the ketchup again. To the latter, my mom would have replied:
“Bend down and LOOK!”
Not expecting anything out of the ordinary, I questioned, “Who is it?”
“Caitlyn’s mom,” she answered, as she put the phone to her ear.
Caitlyn and I were best friends. We shared the same sense of humor and music taste, the same love for drawing, carnival rides, and binge-able TV shows. Just the day before, I was at her house, and she had performed a song for me on her new drum set. It was a solo from a song by Twenty One Pilots, though I’m regretful to say I’ve forgotten the name. Her rendition was powerful and precisely timed, never once breaking the appearance of perfection. I cheered her on, dazzled. Whenever she showcased a new routine, she always had a twinkle in her eye and a grin reaching the start of her ears. This time was no different.
My mom began with something along the lines of, “Hi. Yes, this is Claire’s mom.”
Yet, her expression changed in an instant when she gained new information. Her eyes went red, her skin grew pale, and I watched as the tears started to form on her eyelashes. Then, she uttered a few gloomy words and hung up.
“What? What, mom? What happened?” I urged.
“Claire, I’m so sorry… Caitlyn took her own life yesterday.”
My knees collapsed. The world went silent. I fell to the ground, sobbing. I sat there for a long while, wondering if this was real, knowing it couldn’t be. Surely, such tragedies are never endured at the age of 13. But who is cruel enough to joke about such a thing? How was I so oblivious? Why didn’t I notice any signs, or pick up on any cues? My head and the room spinning asynchronously nauseated my stomach, weakening my muscles, taking the Earth out of its axis.
The truth was that there was no indication. Waving bye to her the previous day, as she slowly left my sight, I couldn’t have known. And so, sitting on that carpet, on August 15, 2017, realizing I’d never walk into a room and see Caitlyn’s bright-eyed, apple-cheeked, wrinkled-chin smile, I was dumbfounded.
No words of condolences offered by my mom could remove the dagger piercing the soft tissue of my delicate heart, over and over again. I was never warned of such horror, never alerted to this silent killer. It was as if such an abrupt end didn’t exist.
The day you unsteadily stand over your best friend’s casket, peer at her array of purple flowers alongside pictures of her on memory boards, and observe her parents and grandparents weeping at the sight, something detaches from your psyche. You gain an uncharacteristically dreary outlook. You start to wonder: if all that happens is left to fate, determined by an all-knowing God, what makes him leave certain souls to fend for themselves? You’re told the deceased have been brought to a better place, as if that makes the death okay, or eases your suffering. What if you don’t believe in a better place? Maybe when you’re gone, you’re just gone.
A once-warm demeanor freezes over, becoming ever more cold and rigid, eventually leaving no trace of tenderness to have ever existed. You become less likely to open up to people because you can’t allow yourself to live through this again. You fear that history will repeat itself, that you might grow fond of a person who will soon leave you. You know that you wouldn’t be able to, for a second time, cope with such a loss.
What could’ve been such a beautiful summer day, on August 15, 2017, has now come to haunt me. The old, familiar feeling infests every corner of my mind. It doesn’t stay contained in a moment; it is not a distant memory. I’ve lived through the day many more times in my nightmares, and even when wide awake, carrying on with day-to-day life.
