T is for Tiger

Today: Worries

They say it's important to write about things that are hard to articulate. Well, this should be really good for me.

My sister's long time on-again-off-again boyfriend comitted suicide. She called me today crying and told me that she's on her way back from registering for classes 4 hours away from our home. It's been 2 hours and I'm still jolted. It was a difficult way to wake up. I didn't know what to tell her. What do you tell someone?

To be honest, I had a preminition yesterday, all day, that I would get a call today that she had committed suicide. I guess it's not terrible that the first thing I felt was relife when she told me it was him. I worry about her all the time. Something keeps making me think about this, though. I'm not sure how to say it. I'm disturbed?

He was a decent kid. He had problems, but nothing that any of us thought insurmountable. My sister loved him. She will always love him. All of us were pretty sure that they would eventually separate and that in time he would just fade away, though she was convinced that they would marry and have kids together. I'm sorry that she can't have what she wants with him. She deserves better than this. She will have better than this.

Mostly, now, my thoughts turn to her. Through talking with her, she admitted that she's questioning life. I think that now would be an appropriate time to say it's a good thing she's getting away from our home town, but how do you say 'it's good that you're getting away from all of this' when 'all of this' is her whole life? I love her. I want for this to not stay with her, though I know it will. I don't know how to console her other than by pleading with her to call me when she needs me and to let her know that I support her in her choices as long as they're not self-destructive ones.

"I don't know how to feel" she kept saying.

I guess shock is how we all react.

I love you, Steph. Things will get better.