dear laura

I was talking with a new friend the other night, about the work I do, youth suicide prevention.  She asked me if I do that work because I lost someone in my life to suicide.  I wasn't entirely sure how to answer.  I think most people know someone who has died of suicide, although that isn't exactly what got me in to the work.  Eleven years ago, my friend Laura took her life.  I haven't thought about her death for some time, the aftermath that followed me.  When I began to tell the story of losing Laura, it became more about my own story related to hers.  I had saved my last correspondence between us and 2 letters from her sister written after her death.  Talking about Laura on Friday night, made me want to find them.  I hunted for them yesterday and couldn't find them.  I had an aha this afternoon and found them in an old filing cabinet in the basement.
I met Laura in Seattle during the summer of 1999.  She was dating a friend of mine from college, Dan.  They had spent the past 12 months traveling around the world.  We met at a restaurant, waiting for another friend  to get off his shift so we could go out.  Laura and I became fast friends.  Laura was tiny.  Despite her size, she had this huge, open heart, sweetly loving everyone who crossed her path.  We left the restaurant and hopped in the back of her boyfriend's VW bug to head out on the town with friends.  I remember sitting next to her, completely drawn in by her presence, talking non-stop.  She kept articulating things I had felt but never spoken.  I remember feeling a sense of great relief to know that I wasn't the only one that felt like the world was messed up, like I didn't quite fit in to the world I lived in.  I went back to her boyfriend's house with her, we danced for hours.  We stayed up the rest of the night talking.  We watched the darkness of night be overtaken by light.  I had to go, there was still more to say.  We agreed to see each other again in a couple of weeks.  We made a plan for her to come to Yakima with her boyfriend on Labor Day weekend. 
Laura and Dan came over Labor Day weekend.  We drove up to the mountains with them and spent a night camping on the river up near Chinook Pass.  At some point in the night, Laura disappeared from around the campfire.  I asked Dan where she had gone and he said not to worry, that she liked to go off by herself to be alone.  She didn't come back to the campfire before I went to bed that night.  We saw each other in the morning, went to Boulder Cave, hiked through, stopped by Sean's family cabin and chatted with his parents.  Dan and Laura went back to Seattle, Laura was headed back to California where her family lived.  She didn't want to be there but felt obligated to be.  She was torn between this world and another, the world as it is and the world as it should be.  We corresponded through email over the following weeks. 
The last correspondence I had from her was on September 28.  Here is an excerpt from her email to me:
"Life is such a mystery, full of so many unanswered questions, presenting us with so many options.  We are always reaching and searching for happiness.  I know happiness comes from within, I just don't know how to find it with my eyes open.  All I know is that I appreciate more than ever the little beauties in life.  The sound of chimes, the color of a flower, the smile from an elderly lady.  I feel weak and so the essence of life as it was meant to be understood speaks clearly."  I would venture to guess I wrote her back, but I couldn't be sure. 
Sometime in early November, I received a letter from Laura's sister.  She wrote to tell me of Laura's passing.  I had not heard from my Seattle friends and I was shocked, my heart cracked open.  I remember tossing and turning that night, trying to make some sense of the letter, struggling to catch my breath.  I couldn't sleep, couldn't articulate the pain I was feeling.  I felt lost.  Laura had felt like a kindred spirit to me.  If she couldn't survive this world, how could I?  I spiraled into a depression.  I cried often, felt lost, alone.
I'm not sure how much time passed, but I think it was that following spring before I recognized how far down into the darkness I had journeyed.  Sean and I had dinner at my sister's one evening, by now we had moved out on our own, were living in a little duplex.  He was talking on the phone at dinner, making plans to go out with an old friend.  On our drive home, I asked him not to go out.  He questioned why.  I remember being afraid to tell him and more afraid to be left alone.  I was scared of what I might do if left alone. 
It was the first step toward finding my way back to the light.  I still think of Laura often.  I think of her beauty, her gentle spirit, I wish that I could have saved her. 
Having our last exchanges in writing, gives me peace, I know that she felt loved, that I said the "right" things.  Not because I had been trained to, but because I knew where she was coming from.  "You said everyone tells you that this will pass.  I think it passes when you find a way to express what you are feeling and know that you are heard.  Tell your story until you feel you are listened to.  I think there are many of us who can understand what you are experiencing.  I wish I knew some answers to how to leave that state and let go of the emotions that go with it.  You must find what gives you peace in your heart and live that, regardless of what those around you may be pushing you to do....I wish I could be there with you and assure you that life is sweet.  As you said we are spirits in a complex world, but not misplaced." 
Knowing what I know now, I can see that she felt trapped, alone, hopeless.  I'm so sorry she left this world so soon.  She brought such light and joy to the lives of others.  Her sister read these words from a card at Laura's funeral...I couldn't say it better.
"Laura was a healer, but she never swallowed her own sweet medicine.  Life is not always sweet and in life there is sadness and trouble-filled times.  I hope she has found sweetness.  I see her dancing to the music of freedom from this world."
dear Laura, I still miss you.