New Patient Story

My sister had a difficult life but due to financial stressors, succeeded in suicide at the age of 43. She was so fearful to communicate her sense of failure to others, we had no idea she was not doing well. I'm grateful she arranged to have her organs donated. I was in a daze after hearing she was gone. We didn't have the closest relationship so I had to also grief the dream that it would be different. Today, I see her in butterflies that I see or in a great food server who knows how to chat it up. She was a great storyteller. I see her attributes and let go a long time ago of any sense of control of having prevented her death. However, I reinforce the value of life in others who are depressed or suicidal in the work I do, reminding them that "this too shall pass" and that they deserve to life regardless of how they feel at that moment.