For Katie

Here’s fair warning. This post is not funny at all. There is no punch line to wait for, no quick wit. No sarcasm or satire here. Feel free to leave now if you want, but really, I hope you stay and read.

Tomorrow is April 28, 2012, which means it has been exactly five years to the day since my baby sister, Katie, took her own life. She was 19 years old. For the sake of my family’s privacy, among other things, I will not be delving into the details of what happened that year leading up to her death. The “why” and “how” isn’t nearly as important as what I’m trying to convey here today. I want her to be remembered, first and foremost. She is definitely worth remembering. I also wish to raise awareness with your help, blog fans (no money required, I promise). We need to talk about suicide, folks, no matter how un-glamorous it might be.

She was absolute trouble right from the start, my sister. She was without a doubt the most stand-out character in our little family sitcom. Out of four siblings she was the only brunette, the shortest by a landslide (not even clearing 5ft), and certainly the loudest of our bunch. She had a machine-gun style laugh that would get anyone laughing right alongside her (although no one laughed harder at her jokes than she did herself.) If I had to pick any one family member early on who I would have thought to be resilient against all odds, stronger than all the rest, and just stubborn enough to make it through anything, I would’ve picked Katie.

When she was little, she told the folks at daycare that she was highly allergic to bread so they wouldn’t make her eat it, even though she wasn’t. She just didn’t care for the taste. When I insisted we draw a line down the center of our shared bedroom to divide things up, she outsmarted me and chose the side with the door that provided access to the bathroom. (The dividing line was un-drawn within the hour.) When my parents discovered a cigarette burn on the driver’s seat of her car while she was in high school, she told them she left her window down and someone must have flicked a lit cigarette into her car to cause the burn. She didn’t quite have an explanation for the lighter they found in the glove box, but you still had to give her points for creativity. To hear her tell a joke was a riot – not because the joke was usually very funny, but because more often than not, she couldn’t make it halfway through without laughing so hard you thought she was going to pass out. The kid was a hoot. Instead of washing her clothes like a normal person, she would just buy new ones (and she thought it was hilarious if you called her out on that kind of stuff.) She was terrified of thunderstorms, and couldn’t fall asleep without a ceiling fan running. (I hated sharing a room with her growing up – always had to have the fan AND the closet light on at bed time – grrrr!) She was a force to be reckoned with, for sure. But now that she’s gone, all she can be is a laundry list of memories for me. I just don’t see how that’s fair.

She died after I became engaged to Hubs, but before our wedding, so she never saw us get married. In place of my sister standing by my side at the altar, I had a vase of red roses (her favorite) placed on a fireplace hearth behind us. She did, however, get to see the engagement ring before Hubs proposed. I still can’t believe she kept that secret so well. I had no idea she knew. 

She hasn’t been into this house because we bought it after she was already gone. (Katie would have loved that it came stock with a mirror on the ceiling in the master bedroom.) She didn’t get to make any sarcastic comments when I waddled around at 9 months pregnant looking like a manatee in a striped shirt, and she never had the chance to hold Bean after his birth. She doesn’t even know there is a Bean. (It kills me that Bean won’t ever know Aunt Katie. How can I possibly get him to understand how ridiculous and amazing she was?) My brother bought a house and my other sister bought a husband (married. I mean she married a husband. Freudian slip.) and Katie wasn’t there for any of it. She never, ever knew anything past the age of 19. 

Suicide holds a dangerous amount of social stigma – if we can’t talk about it, how can we prevent it? We don’t expect a cancer patient to suffer in silence or simply “get over it”, so why do people suffering from depression or mental illness get shut out? A surgery scar from having a tumor removed is usually seen as a badge of courage, a battle won. A scar on the inside of your wrist? Usually seen as shameful and abhorrent. How can we fight to save the people we love if we aren’t even allowed to talk about what’s killing them? How can we make sure no one else loses their favorite sarcasm-spewing, machine gun-laughing, almost too short to see over the steering wheel, loud and whacky brunette?

I’m not asking for money, my dear readers. I don’t need you to sponsor my walk or buy a t-shirt or whatever. Just educate yourself. Be aware. Promise me that if you ever even think you’ve found yourself in the presence of someone who needs help you will fight tooth and nail to get it for them. You will listen to them. You will believe them. 

Promise. 

Promise me you’ll love them and comfort them and do everything in your power to let them know you care. That you’re going to fight the fight with them. That you absolutely, positively won’t give up on them or shut them out because what they’re going through isn’t trendy or well understood or easy to talk about. Promise me. 

Promise Katie. 

Leave me a comment, and tell me you promise.

Please visit some of the links below if you can find the time. Just give this five minutes. After all, that’s the same number of years I’ve been without my baby sister. 

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

I particularly like that this organization supports not only general suicide prevention and awareness, but these two causes specifically: anti-bullying, and suicide prevention and crisis intervention for our veterans.

http://helpguide.org/mental/suicide_prevention.htm

Some really fantastic tips on recognizing suicide risk in others, and what to do or say to help. 

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Love this organization, as it specifically aims to help teens and adolescents. From their website –

The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.

Katie, we love you and miss you every. Single. Day. I still reach for my phone sometimes to call you when something funny or ridiculous happens. (And it tears me apart when I realize I can’t.) Because of you, I can’t bring myself to change the channel if it happens to land on a Golden Girls rerun. Also thanks to you, I live under the belief that hot dogs and bologna are two completely separate food groups, and that the phrase “sistah from the same mistah” is an acceptable way to address a sibling. You’re still the only person who has ever written me a note that included the phrase “Oy Vey”. I hope Bean gets your embarrassing laugh, Katie. At least it would make it easier to find him in a crowd, right?

**My current writing project: a book for Katie. Shortly before she passed, I found a piece of paper where she had written a list entitled “Things to do before I die”, or something to that effect. On this list, among other things, she wrote that she wanted to be a published author, either for her poetry or her short stories. (She also wrote song lyrics and occasionally dabbled in some really terrible art, but that is neither here nor there.) It is an extremely long road from ideation to publication, my friends, but I’m confident I’ll make it. And when I do I intend to accent my own words with snippets of her writing so that finally, after all these years, she’ll reach her goal. She’ll be a published author. Any lucky vibes you have to spare would be greatly appreciated here, blog fans. I absolutely have to make this happen.**