I imagine that, as a parent, the worst thing you could ever find is a suicide note from your child. It accoured to me: have my parents ever walked into my room wondering if I had done it? Have they ever slowly opened my bedroom door in fear that they would find my body lying on a puddle of my own blood?
I imagine my friends would be deeply sad, my boyfriend would lose track of his own life for a while and my collegues, the people who knew me, would feel bothered by that unsettling feeling we get when facing someone’s death, but it certainly wouldn’t be as hard as it would be on my parents.
Friends eventually forget about it and you become just someone who used to hang out with them, just somebody who no longer goes to reunions, makes them laugh or helps with everyday problems.
Boyfriends and girlfriends probably feel it in a deeper level, though. This will now affect how they face every other relationship in their lives, romantic or not, and the fear of opening up to someone else – just to be left again – would probably be unberable at first, but I believe that, even though you would be remembered very often, it would also go away eventually.
Parents however will never get rid of the room that used to be yours. They now have to deal with your body, your clothes, your books (that is, if they can) and the memories. You were their whole life for long years, the whole purpose of their choices and actions and now you’re nothing but a memory – a sad, hurtful memory. They will always be the parents of the kid who killed themself.
Would your friends wonder if they were good enough? Would your significant other hate you or love you even more? Would your parents reconsider every little thing you’ve ever told them and wish they could do it all over again, looking back and seeing they were actually capable of change? You will never know because now you’re dead.
I am not here to tell it is worth sticking around to find out, after all, many of the changes would only happen if you were no longer around to witness them. It is the desire of having you back and the fear that if they did, they would lose you again, that makes people want to change, to seize every opportunity of being around you, of making you feel loved and safe.
Isn’t it ironic?