Six Months

  Yesterday was the 6 month mark since the day my 19 year old nephew died. It is unfathomable to me it has been that long. It is inconceivable to me it hasn't been much longer. Time has become something warped in those six months. He would now be 20 years old, graduating with his EMS license, ready to join the military to become Special Ops and about to head off to see the world. He had big dreams, big plans. Had. That has to be the saddest word on earth. 'Had'.  He had so much going for  him. His future shined as brightly as any could. His family loved and supported him. He was on the verge of stepping out into the world to make his mark and oh what a mark he would make!!!!

  Instead there are broken hearts, so many questions, so much pain and grief. Why? We will never know. It is not for us to understand. We must simply learn to accept and be okay with that. I think we all struggle with the questions, the guilt, the anger, the senselessness of what happened. Suicide. What an ugly word that describes the world ceasing to exist as we once knew it. The tremendous loss cannot be understood unless you have felt it. Unfortunately, as we have learned, way too many lives have been  upended suddenly by suicide. I never knew so many people around me had suffered this sort of loss. It isn't often discussed. I mean, how do you launch into that discussion? "I am planning to stop at the store on my lunch hour and my nephew/brother/cousin/etc killed themselves." I am not sure if it made me feel better that so many people truly understand what we are going through, or if it upsets me more because so many people have had this particularly difficult experience in their lives.

  What I do know is that Zane's death affected many, many people. Not just family, but friends, church members, mentors, and the families of Zane's friends. It's a huge ripple effect. Strangely, part of why he died is that he felt so unloved. If he could just see how many, many people he left behind hurting and broken hearted. If he could just have had a sense of how much he was truly loved!

 We love you Zane!