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You get a message from your friend. He tells you he's about to take his own life because his life has become so painful and he can't see any other way out of it. In a panic you respond hoping you'll be able to find the right words to make him not make the ultimate irreversible decision. Or at least keep him alive long enough until help arrives. You reach out to every friend and family member you can think of. Frantically praying that someone
somewhere will be able to stop this.
And then your friend stops responding. Your calls go to voice mail. Your text messages stay on Delivered. After what feels like the longest, most agonizing time of your life you finally get a call. And it's the worst possible outcome. Your friend is gone. You weren't able to stop him. You effectively watched him die. You will never see his smile or hear his laugh again. You'll never again hear him rant about his favorite show getting cancelled before it had a proper finale. You'll never be able to cry on his shoulder or be his shoulder to cry on ever again. You'll never get to take that trip up north that you'd been planning with him. You'll never again get to talk shit about each other's bosses and blow off steam after work together. You'll never get to say "I'm sorry" for that thing you really ought to have apologized for even though you both kinda moved on from it. He's gone forever and there's nothing you can do.
And while you're trying to process this traumatic news yourself you also have to be the one to tell others. Your fingers tremble as you dial numbers knowing you are about to emotionally devastate people you and your friend care about. You have to witness others breakdown as they realize the same thing you have. There may be comfort in one another but it doesn't beat out the shock and pain of his loss. He now only exists in your memories. The logical part of your brain says you did everything you could to save him. The emotional part tries to shoulder the blame and wonders why you didn't do more. The internal emotional war tears you apart. In anger you try to do right by your friend's memory by bringing attention to places you know contributed to his worsening health and suicidal ideation.
And people call you a liar. People who don't know you, who didn't know your friend, who have never so much as spoken a word to either of you before this are telling you he's actually alive and well even as you collect his ashes from the crematorium. They call him everything from the most childish schoolyard insults to strings of slurs and obscenities that would border on poetry if they weren't so vile. They tell you they hope your friend is dead just so they can piss and shit on his grave. His memory and legacy are tarnished by assumptions of random people who know nothing of the situation. Your own healing is made a thousand times more difficult because every day strangers insist on dumping salt in the wounds created by your friend's death.
But there's hope. In a year official police and government records will be published. They will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt you aren't lying. Nobody will be able to accuse it of being a forgery. Nobody will be able to accuse you of faking it. You'll have your closure, but most importantly your friend will finally be able to rest in peace. You just have to hold on for one year. 365 days of torment. You buckle down and weather the storm because you know rescue is coming. Because your friend is worth it.
And then the day arrives. And you find out that because some peon in the bureaucratic chain of command made an error, your friend's records weren't entered into the system. The thing that was supposed to absolve you and your friend instead makes you look like an even bigger liar. And you can't exactly log off and ignore it all like your therapist has been telling you to because now there's talk of legal action being taken against your friend's estate and you. Because of a mistake made by a faceless pencil pusher who will suffer at most a wag of the finger from their boss and a slightly smaller raise during their yearly review.
After all of this would the phrase "oh you pesky dumb dumbs my friend really is pushing up daisies! Nah nah nah boo boo I don't caaaaaaare what you think!" ever come to your mind? Or would you be so enraged and distraught that you'd need someone to physically wrangle you before you say / do something that would get you in serious trouble?
You're a terrible liar and an insult to everyone who has lost loved ones to suicide, Hector.
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