Why couldn’t you have given that speech last year.

My first impulse was to be insulted. My second was to laugh so that I wouldn’t cry. I did both of these.

I did my speech today, about not killing yourself. I was nervous, mostly b/c of the fear of failing. I would have been more calm if my future werent’ on the line. Stupid future. I told a story about a girl I once knew, a beautiful girl with a contagious smile and a wonderful future ahead of her and a compassionate spirit… I didn’t use any names. A girl I know asked me if the story was true, and I said yes. After explaining that the one year “anniversary” of her death is closing in, she made this comment to me. I know she meant for it to be matter of factual but I didn’t take it that way. I was hurt because she was right. I’ve kept myself awake at night sometimes wondering what I could have done. I should have been more involved in her life or I should have called that night. I shouldn’t have been worrying about my stupid lack of guy problems, worrying about some situation that I made myself physically ill over, something that wasn’t even that big a deal. I should have gotten to know her better. I should have seen it coming, I should have known the future. There are millions of things that I’ve convinced myself that I should have done, things that I couldn’t do.

It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t save her no matter how much I may have wanted to. I couldn’t have known what was happening in her head, seeing her twice a week. She didn’t die because I was living my life. She didn’t die because I’m not a psychic. But when people say things like that to me, it really does feel like I have to blame myself all over again.

I knew there would be pain involved if I told this story, but it’s the only way that I could make that speech real. I didn’t want to risk making it fake. Not for the sake of the grade, but for the people listening to me. I can’t know what’s happening in their minds just like I couldn’t read hers. I can’t save them just like I couldn’t save her, but I can try.

Sometimes, I still see the images in my mind. I don’t know what happened so I can only guess, and those images haunt me. Like the images in your worst nightmares and I can’t make them go away. I don’t want to forget, but at times when it seems like my fault all over again, it almost hurts too much to remember. Why do I? Because I love that girl, even if I didn’t know her as well as maybe people who saw her everyday. I loved her the first time she ever came to Wednesday night bible study and talked me into coming out of my corner on the floor and sitting on the couch. I loved her when she told me the stories about boyfriends and flowermound and the origin of the quotes on her purse and showed me pictures of people I would never know. I loved her on the one year anniversary of 9/11 when we all watched the September 11th tv special and she had red, white and blue paper clips in her ears and she broke into tears at some of those stories. I loved her when she told me about her grandfather and her family and the things she was struggling with. I loved her when she chopped off all her hair, and I loved her the night she pulled me up to the stairs with her and told me she was scared and needed someone to be with her when she got baptized, and I loved her while she glowed up there and I screamed and yelled and choked back tears. I loved her when I picked up the phone and heard the news and I still love her now.

Maybe I should have done something more, but I’m sorry that I couldn’t. But please don’t think that I didn’t want to. Don’t think it doesn’t tear me apart inside at the thought that I didn’t give her what she needed, whatever that was. I don’t think I could have.