I knew what that Timehop was going to say, but it still made my breath catch in my throat a little bit, and it still made my eyes sting. The reality that it was exactly a year ago today. The celebration/party emoticon is not what I would've chosen. I knew what happened a year ago, and it wasn't something I wanted to celebrate. It was a year ago that someone I cared very much about had died. One year ago today, I read a text message from one of my friends back home that Thomas Doyle had taken his own life, and the pain and confusion is the same as it was when I heard it the first time.
One year later and I'm still in that place where I've been reading my Bible furiously all morning trying to make sense of a senseless thing. There is no sense to be made. There aren't any answers. I remember struggling with the "why?" question for months afterward. Still to this day, I ask why? I ask myself if there was anything I could've said or done to stop him from pulling that trigger. It's an unsettling feeling when someone I was so close with was struggling on such a deep level and I had absolutely NO idea. I would've done all I could to help, but I didn't know. How could I not have known? There are about as many questions still today as there was then. Time hasn't given us any answers.
I'm grateful that this year I have supportive friends and I have Mitchell again to help hold me up. He was there when I sat on my couch crying all day last year. He let me ruin one of his shirts with tear stains, and he held me like friends do. Now, as my fiancé, he'll hold me again this time feeling some of the pain himself because when you love someone that much, their pain becomes your own. For that, I'm sorry Mitchell. This day is going to be hard for the both of us.
It's one of those things I suppose that I won't ever have the right answer to. Someday, it'll all make sense but as long as I'm living on this earth, I won't ever understand why. My heart is broken and spirit crushed today for the friends and family of Thomas Doyle.
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed."
-Psalm 37:18
If you came to this post looking for some wise insight or answers, I simply don't have any of that. All I have is the why question, that I assume everyone else has as well. I'm choosing to trust God with my why question simply because it is too heavy and too dark to carry on my own shoulders. If you came because your heart is broken and your spirit is crushed, well, now you know that the Lord is close to you in this time. He will never leave you or forsake you. I'm clinging tightly to that promise with all the might I have in me today.
Someday it'll all make sense. That day isn't today. I could wrestle with the why question for as long as I want, but it will always win. That's why I'm letting it go. There aren't any answers to be found through wrestling with it. It just sends me in a tailspin of unanswered questions, frustration, and guilt. Those are dark and heavy things that weigh a person down and make peace and love extremely hard. What I'm going to do with this day is this: I'm going to choose peace that comes from knowing that Thomas is in a better place where his pain and his sickness don't exist. I'm also going to do my absolute best to be extra good at loving the people in my life, simply because its days like this I'm reminded that life is precious and someday when those people are gone, all you wish for is the chance to say, "I love you" again. I'm going to love extra good today for Thomas. If you knew him, I would encourage you to do the same. If you didn't, well I'd still encourage you to do it simply because it's a good thing to do.
Love each other well today.
-Emily
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