Kaitlyn Did You Know?

My wonderful Kaitlyn. In the year that you have been gone I have had the great fortune to have, from time to time, antibiotics poured onto the wounds of my soul that were caused by your suicide. Though there are not many things that help me get through this, there are those wonderful times that I get to view how other people saw you. Some of these people I don’t even know, some I did a little, some I had heard of but never met.

These wonderful people who you had met or spent time with during various activities of your life, at different times of your life, have taken the time to sit down and write to me and tell me of those times they spent with you, what a wonderful person you were and how you touched their lives. Kaitlyn, having them do this ranks among the highest of things that sooth my soul since you left. I have had people since the very few days after your death, right on up to a few days ago that took the time to email me and tell me of their memories of you. Pieces of your life that I had never heard. These are some of the greatest gifts I have been given since that horrible disease made you think you could not live on earth anymore.

But Kaitlyn, there have also been people that have emailed me or messaged me or wrote me that have never even met you but admired you from a distance. For many reasons, some never approached you, perhaps due to their own shyness and insecurities, or that they never got the chance to talk to you. There are those that knew you from only a brief time, like if you met someone that was friends of someone you knew; perhaps you went out to eat in a group and they met you then. Also there were some of your medical school classmates, at least 3 that have contacted me, and even more that were not in your class,that realized before your death that they were so looking forward to being your friend and realized what a wonderful person you were. They did not have a chance to know this before because you were shy and they did not have that chance to get to know you until orientation of your 3rd year. How ironic it is that these people would have become your good friends (they told me so) during your 3rd year because they discovered what I’ve known, what so many other people knew, that you were smart, funny, interesting, and a very loyal friend. I wonder, did you know this Kaitlyn?

Did you have any idea of the lives you affected by merely brushing by some people’s lives? Did you have any idea of what a great person your friends thought you were, though I know they all told you? Did all that love and admiration penetrate the depression that you hid so carefully? Were you able to feel their love? Or did your depression make you feel that you were unworthy of love?

I know that sometimes when people are so very depressed, they think no one loves them that people would be better off without them when it is so very untrue. Is this how you felt Kaitlyn?

If knowing that you were so loved and admired, would it have made a difference? Would it have made you know that your life was worth living?

I don’t know the answers to these questions because I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that you knew that we loved you so very, very much. You came from a family that was not scared to show love. We showered you and your sister with hugs and kisses and us saying that we loved you several times each and every day. If we could not do it physically when you were not here, we would do it with our words, with our actions. I cannot count the times when I told you that you would be in danger of being loved completely up when you came home for a visit, that I would kiss all the hair off the top of your head.

I also know how very, very much your friends and boyfriend loved you.

But all of our love could not keep you here Kaitlyn. Depression distorts a person’s thinking in many areas. Apparently it did not affect your organizational skills or your achievement skills or your intellectual skills, but on an emotional level it apparently affected you so very much.

I hope you knew how very much you were loved Kaitlyn. In the place where you are now, surely you know. You are not cursed with that horrible depression that took you away from us any longer.

But I still hope you knew.