Do I blame myself for Emily’s suicide? In no way – not for a second. Do I blame her? That is a more complicated question to answer. 

In regard to me, I am rife with imperfections, but I am also full of devotion, forgiveness and affection. I have been a mother of high calibre: loved deeply, listened carefully, sacrificed accordingly, done things I didn’t want to, asked hard questions, and slept at Emily’s bedside on the floor (we called it the cloud bed) many nights after she took a precipitous downturn in late September. I have taken her out for innumerable coffee dates where she would study and I would prepare school work or mark or write, and we would sit quietly until she would divulge some tidbit of her life, spurring a conversation I knew she found hard to initiate but so badly wanted to.

The coffee dates were my primary way in. They often worked. I didn’t often give advice, unless asked. I listened. I commiserated. I shared some of my own experiences of my teenage years that may have helped a bit. I did not suffer from depression, never have. I’ve been sad and certainly anxious, but whatever it was that dogged Emily was well beyond my purview, something for which I had no frame of reference. Whatever wisdom I could convey to her, I did. I have no idea if it helped or hindered, though she always listened with an open and curious heart. I know she wanted to find her way. I know she hoped that somehow she could find the one answer that would set her free.

The way in which she gained her freedom was not the sort I could ever let myself imagine she would take. Yes, I do believe she is free now, and for that I am glad, but the burden she has placed on her family and her friends is a sorrow and sometimes rage that I deal with on a daily basis. How could she do this to us? Yes, she avoided her own pain, but she transferred it to us. No, I don’t blame her, but at times I do find myself resenting her for this. Her poor friends: how they must wonder how they might have helped her, when, of course, they couldn’t have. Perhaps they at times blame themselves, when, of course, their relationships played out as most teenage friendships do: certainly with some tumult and stress, but also with deep love, respect, hijinks, and fun. Nobody should take the blame for Emily’s death. Nobody. This was not about any of us; this was about herself and her disease. 

I know that I do not blame myself; I pray that her friends and acquaintances do not blame themselves, either. This was her battle to fight and we could not help her, try as we might. May we all be free of blame and also able to forgive her.