How does a fourteen year old hang herself?
The news drifting in from another state is vague and oblique.
Upstairs, I remove dry tablecloths from the rail on my landing.
They’ve been there since just after Thanksgiving. I wonder...
Her mom and I Skyped in the spring.
I could see a railing behind her at her house.
I heard a dog.
All seemed cozy and normal.
Did the girl use a strip of pink checkered bed sheets?
A bathrobe tie, a couple of belts, or her terrier’s leash?
Did her fingers shake with fear, or were they
Steady, sadly resolute?
Wise ones know that whys are…
Unanswerable.
November. No sun, no warmth, no birds, no answers.
November is when she did it. Just before Thanksgiving.
Friends are still moving through molasses
Trying to comprehend the act. Trying to be helpful.
Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September...
The days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November...
How does a mother survive her young daughter’s suicide?
No amount of chicken soup, sermons or pretty cards can
UN-do this,
Nor return normalcy.
There is only a suffocating new-normal.
Every sunrise, a new slug in the stomach.
Each holiday, birthday, anniversary, and
Compounding interest on pain -
Like pulling nails from nail beds, pouring acid in the mouth,
Taking our words which would effort to explain,
Express, or exorcise the deed
Making us - numb and wordless - want to
Join the dead in their freedom.
Too many movies? News stories? School lunch room banter?
Playground taunts?
Whys persist. They can never be answered.
Pain persists.
If we’re lucky, it diminishes by increments over decades.
Compassionate Friends, like Twelve Step meetings,
Proliferate.
Every city has one. The need increases.
Bullying is epidemic.
Skin is thinner - or over exposed through social media.
Is it climate change?
*September Song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson
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