When you hear that they’ve taken their own lives, your first instinct is a selfish one, to remember or exaggerate what relationship you had with them. What did they think of me? What’s an anecdote I’ll have at the ready?

You’ll say that you’re centering your grief, and you’ll wonder if you’re centering yourself. You’ll seek some artifact, some detail that will reanimate them (or at least their past self), awkwardly fumbling through the overstuffed kitchen drawer of your mind–no, they didn’t play [xxx], they played [xxx]; no, they weren’t in [xxx], they were in [xxx]. Their [xxx] was [xxx] years older–or was it [xxx] years older? So you pull the yearbook from the shelf.

You’ll read into every image. This was the senior photo that they scheduled & dressed for, that they drove to & performed in, a parent just off-camera nudging them into a smile they hadn’t shared with family in years, hoping that this will be the year it’s all better, that a year from now, they’ll depart for the future of their dreams (or of someone’s dreams), a landscape far from the shadowed horizons of their now. Their smile lasted as long as the shutter click, as false on the page as it was that day. You can almost … actually, you can easily see it.

Or maybe they’re smiling, really smiling. It’s (their last) summer at home. They’re not writing essays yet. They’re not whittling down schools yet. Every adult in their life is waiting for them to take the next steps they’ll share with their entire class, some of them life-long friends, friends to the end, truly.

They’re months away from the long absences from school, months away from the long stay at [xxx], the best possible place for them. Months away from our sighing, relieved that they were saved before they could hurt themselves. They haven’t yet written the goodbye. They haven’t yet [xxx] late that [xxx] night.

They’re months away from telling counselors, “When I get out of here, [xxx]. I understand that I have a lot to live for, and I need you to know [xxx].” They’ll be deadly serious.

They’ll be released, a plan & a prescription in hand. They … they look good, to be honest. They know they’re being scrutinized in their face & watched carefully behind their back. They might even graduate. It’ll feel like it should–like it never happened, like they’re fixed. After months, we sigh, relieved, and think of the next semester, the next class, the next batch to grade & graduate. When all (well, when most) is said & done, you forget to ask after them.

And then.

You’ll find yourself numb & cautious. Some colleagues are wrecked; new colleagues (who never met them) know how to read the room, poker faces & polite questions, euphemisms & careful terms (“completed” not “committed”). You’ll wonder quietly how to walk the emotional tightrope.

You’ll all walk into a big room where someone delivers the big news. You’ll walk your kids to a smaller room where you ask how they feel about it, about them, about this. You’ll avoid saying that there’s no why in moments like this. You’ll wonder–G-d forgive me–who might be next.