She wasn’t a woman yet, but she wasn’t a little girl either. And I’ll call her Summer, because really, her name wasn’t, but she was.
It’s not important why I met her (through a mutual friend), or when (too shortly before we said goodbye for the last time), or how (buying Slurpees from 7-11). What matters is that she was this inconceivable force in my life, while she was in it – magnetic, inspiring, maternal and devoted. She was someone you could fall in love with. And I did, I think sometimes.
She called me the night before that day. She didn’t leave me a voicemail, and I had her phone number on my call display, but I don’t remember why I missed her call – I was probably in class or working. Or drunk – I drank every day, then.
We’d been talking less the past few weeks, she’d been going her own direction, hermiting herself as those of us with depression are wont to do. I was giving her space, I thought – she was dealing with the realities of being diagnosed and medicated, and then differently medicated, and then given a cocktail.
She’d kind of been through the ringer, doing what her parents thought was best (because no child of theirs should have been that moody, that sad, that self-destructive). She was taking it all, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, mood-stabilizers, sedatives, sleeping aides. For them. Really, for her mother. And it was tough going, and instead of talking to me, she pulled away.
And I let her. It’s taken me a long time to be okay with that, to not feel guilt, but finally it seems I am okay. But she’s not.
She’d been a cutter. She was bipolar. She was…sensitive. She had all of these things wrong with her and she just wanted to be okay, you know? But something got lost in the chemical barrage that December.
Four people were familiar enough to use the back door to come in. Three of them lived there and I was the other one. Her father worked late nights, often coming in after her mother was in bed and Summer was pretending to be, scribbling in journal after journal, sitting in chat rooms, on pro-ana websites. Her mother, like clockwork, every work day would come home from her job at the office, slip off her shoes, pour a glass of wine (but only one) and ask Summer what she’d accomplished that day.
Not how her day was. What she’d accomplished. (It’s easy for me to paint her as a cold-hearted bitch. She was.) So, it was obvious who was supposed to find her.
But she had called me the night before, see, and I had called and there’d been no answer, so I had dropped by. I had some Vitamin e capsules for her – something I’d had kicking around for a while and hadn’t been using – a gigantic bottle of them that she could use on the slashes of scars that raced from her thighs to waist. I’d seen them, those little human herringbone designs she’d created. If I’m going to be thoroughly graphic, I’d kissed them when she tried to hide them from me in shame (maybe it was just me she was hiding from, not them, I don’t know). But she was ashamed of them, anyway and so was going to use this Vitamin E oil to try to heal them.
And she was there in the backyard when I came walking around, dodging garbage cans and the bush where we tended to throw our cigarette butts. She wasn’t in the cherry tree, but she wasn’t on the ground below it, either. And there was a leather belt around her neck and blood had soaked through the white broomstick skirt she was wearing, which by that point, the winter rain had made fairly transparent. Her eyes were open, but it was too late for her to see me and too late for me to stop her.
And if the blood and the belt weren’t enough of an indication of her seriousness about being done, the empty medication bottles that her mother found later, were.
So, this is why December is a momentous month, why it’s not just about me, or family, or Christmas, or Seasonal fucking Affective Disorder. Summer was one of two people I’ve known that have died during this month by their own hand – both not yet 20, both…phenomenal.
This is why December’s charity, to which I will pledge all of this month’s advertising revenue to, is To Write Love on Her Arms. Go check them out, what they do and how and why.
If you’d like to, share your own story in the comments, or by emailing me [mommy is moody at gmail dot com].
Use the button on the sidebar to donate directly, and then steal it for your own sidebar – you can even let me know how much you dropped, if you like. Get on board by pledging a portion or all of this month revenue, if you like – let me know because I’ll let everyone else know, as well. Stumble this post, Digg it, whatever you can do.
I want…every person who can, who has a reason to, who doesn’t have a reason to and wants to keep it that way, to be involved. I want you to help raise money, and even if you’re not in the position to use your own income, I want you to send more people here, because impressions raise pennies and pennies add up. Every single penny I earn in December will be donated at the beginning of January.
And there’s further incentive, in case my story or someone else’s isn’t enough…I’m running a contest. I know, creepy and inappropriate, right? Maybe not. Here’s the deal:
- Every impression yields $0.XX, for the impression-based advertising I do here, so the total at the end of December is based on click throughs from links, search engines, feed readers, etc.
- I want you to send people here. Do it in a link-loving post, add the button to your sidebar or posts linking back here, do whatever you want to get people to click in for the month of December. They don’t even have to stay around for the depression-fest that is Mommy is Moody.
- The leader, with the most referrals? Will win a choice of three prizes in January. Don’t worry, they’re good prizes, you will like them and I will even make sure they make it to you.
The contest runs from 12:01am on December 1st, to 11:59pm on December 31st (all times are PST), and I will report weekly who is leading (via Google Analytics’ reporting), as well as the total donations to date.
It’s up to you, do you wanna donate or right-click-save-upload and be part of the solution, or do you want to read this post and walk away?
