I felt that the time when I most needed a letter was when I was 7 years old, the day before my mother committed suicide, the day when everyone stopped talking to me the same.
Dear Sweet 7 year old Shawna,
I know it has been a long three days wondering where your mom is. I wish I could tell you she will be with you soon. Tomorrow you are going to get the most devastating news a little girl can hear and you will never be the same. I can't change it or fix it. Some things are beyond our control. It is not your fault. You are going to think you will never understand how she could leave you. You are going to think that you will never be able to forgive her.I know how much you love her and I want you to know that she loves you more. It will be a long and treacherous road for the better part of 15 years, but I want you to know you will be okay.
One day you will have children and you will be faced with so much pain and agony from all of the choices and consequences that spiraled your life out of control following tomorrow's events. One day when you are 25, you will be crying so hard you cannot breathe and you will be holding 10 little pills that are waiting to end your life. Then you will understand your mother's pain. For an agonizing couple of hours, you will mentally walk in her shoes, feel her pain, and relive every moment of love and loss that can be experienced in a mother/child relationship. You will play the child and the mother. You will grieve for both of them.
You will choose to surrender to living instead of dying on that day. You will forgive your mother and you will see new light, for it is her life lost that saved your own. Had you not experienced what you are about to tomorrow morning, you would not have realized the irreplaceable void that ending your own life would have left your own children. You will come to appreciate your mother's life for what it was and wasn't and you will take it all with you into your own journey of motherhood.
Deciding to live, will however not be the easy choice. Your steps from that point on will be slowly moving forward through confusion and darkness and you will experience even more loss. Your choices will not always be good and you will use substances and sexuality in really harmful ways. You will fail your children at one point and you will again walk yourself to death's door. Your own suicide letter will save you and the writer in you will become alive.
You will face some of the most extreme hardships and will give true meaning to rock bottom. You will see unrecognizable horrors within yourself, through the blurred vision of meth addiction. Yes, its true. Unlike the familiar times of death, you will wish for life and you will fight for it. I wish that I could tell you that there is a way to change any of the pain that is about to commence, but there is not. Please do not be afraid. You will become exactly who you are meant to be. You will realize love in all of its capabilities. You will emerge a capable and beautiful woman and you will be thankful for every experience life has given you.
Please sleep tight tonight, Shawna. Tonight is the last peaceful night you will have for a very long time. For tonight your innocence will slip away in the middle of the night and be lost, but not forever. What is lost, will most assuredly be found, and you will become life's explorer.You will create a wonderful existence and you will find beauty in the face of tragedy. Tonight an angel whispers "sweet dreams, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" before her eternal sleep. She loves you.
Love,
your 31 year old self
