It Took Me Over Two Years To Write This Post – Part 5 “Conversations & Regrets”

The story is true (some details omitted for privacy); the names are fake.

Content Warning: Suicide

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

There are so many conversations that I wish I could have had with you:

You’d be happy to know that I (eventually) took your advice and started therapy. I would have loved to talk to you about that experience. How strange it is to build trust with a therapist. I would have asked you how to go from the natural tendency to want to appear likeable to actually sharing the relevant dislikeable shit that you’re supposed to talk about.

Photo by SHVETS production from Pexels.

I would have loved to talk to you about struggling with Shabbat, about deciding to quit, and also about leaving the door open to come back. I know you quit Shabbat, yet remained connected.

Actually, better yet, I would have loved to finally do that low-key Shabbat dinner we talked about doing – low-key with respect to food expectations (you knew I sucked at hosting and became a stressed-out lunatic whenever I attempted it) but with high-energy z’mirot (traditional Shabbat table songs). I’m sorry we never did that Shabbat dinner. Or that I never took you clubbing. I just always thought we had more time.

I would have opened up to you about the problems in my marriage. I would have felt bad about sharing this with you; I mean, you hosted my Shabbat Kallah to celebrate my then upcoming marriage, and you (and everyone else, myself included) thought Husband and I were a perfect match. I would have talked you about what it’s like to contemplate ending a relationship with someone you really care about – you’ve done it, so I know you would have understood. You also had a knack for remaining impressively good friends with your exes. If it came to that, I might have asked you for tips.

You’d be happy to know that I (eventually) ended things with Crush-Turned-Emotional Affair Guy. Ending it was easier than I thought it would be, although it took me longer than it should have.

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There was the time I got drunk enough to tell Husband how depressed I really was. That conversation went about as well as one might expect. It was an awful conversation, almost comedic in its awfulness and awkwardness, and the whole time, I had the strongest urge to go over your house and talk to you about just the experience of having this conversation. I just sensed you would have understood it in a way no one else would have. I had to remind myself that you were gone.

I had to actually remind myself that you were dead, that’s how strongly I felt an urge to talk to you. Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

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I wish had been a better friend. I would have told you how good your poetry really was, from your clever Purim rhymes, to the poem about your cat on the day your father died that was absolutely stunning. I feel like I was always a little too self-absorbed in my own poetry to give yours the attention and praise it really deserved.

I’m sorry I was a shitty listener when your cat was sick and when he had to be put down. When your cat got sick, I was so shocked by his appearance, I forgot to be a good friend and comfort you.

I wish I would have been a better listener. I remember the time several years ago, when you became emotional over not having had children of your own. I hugged you, but I didn’t really identify. I wasn’t a great listener then because at the time, I wasn’t sure I wanted children and if I changed my mind, I was confident they would happen because I was young. Now I do.

I would ask you how you came to embrace the role of “Aunt Joyce” to your nieces and nephews and friends’ kids. I’m still stuck in angry rage and jealousy stage of hating aunthood like it’s a crappy consolation prize, and cutting off friendships with friends who become parents. “Miriam” mentioned how you played with her kids and made finger puppets with them. How her daughter, who had made aliyah, and was now a tough IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldier, had to bring a mutual friend to the shiva call at your mother’s because she would have broken down completely – you were that close.

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It’s really these “conversations we didn’t have” that I regret the most. Not to say that I don’t regret not having done enough to prevent you from killing yourself – I do. I don’t pretend to know whether suicide is a choice or whether its consequence of an illness that is not a choice, and that to say “committed suicide” is the wrong word. (And thank you to Ashley for posting about this question on her blog, Mental Health @ Home). But I can acknowledge that there was probably a limit to how much I could have realistically done to prevent you from dying. So that’s not really at the forefront of my regrets.

What I do regret though, is not having made the most of the time we had when you were alive.

All these missed conversations, regrets, and feelings. Photo by Brock Wegner on Unsplash

Part 6