High School is already hard enough as it is, so when you find a best friend who understands you as a person, it makes situation like High School a little more doable. That friend for me in High School was Brody. Brody, even though a male, just understood me. Even though I knew we were only ever going to be just friends, we had a soulmate connection. I remember the day of Brody’s passing like it was yesterday. Our group of friends had all just graduated from High School and had met up to attend the High School football game. Brody was there and I instantly knew something was off about him but I figured we would talk about it later in private. Brody decided to leave right before the end of the game and said he needed to get home to help his parents with something. We said our goodbyes and that was the last time I saw him. It wasn’t until after his funeral that I realized when Brody said goodbye that night, he hugged me a little tighter than normal and only said “goodbye”, not “see you later”. At the time I didn’t think so much of the little things, it was during the grief, during the really hard days that make it feel impossible to get out of bed or feel guilty for even existing. In the beginning I kicked myself repeatedly for not catching the little things, not reading farther into them or questioning as to why he seemed off that night. I started getting a case of the “what ifs”. What if I had called him out on his off behavior? What if I had made him come home and hang out with me? Would any of that changed the outcome that we were facing at the time? Could I have spared his mother the loss of her second son? A couple years prior to Brody’s passing, his older brother also committed suicide in their family home and it always haunted Brody. Not the suicide in itself but the fact that his parents often blamed him for it. Now years later, it isn’t the “what ifs” that haunt me, it’s the “whys”. Why did you do it? Why did you feel like you couldn’t come to me? To this day I often wonder if Brody took his own life as the only way he felt he could tell his parents how he was feeling and to show he was really struggling. Brody was always the one to give you his shirt off his back, but were there enough of us to reciprocate that? More importantly if there was, did we make him feel like we were there for him? Before Brody and now even after, I am a firm believer that suicide is so much harder on everyone around you. The people left to pick up the pieces of “life” without you in it. The ones left to make the hard decisions and have to get out of bed the next day. A year after Brody passed I became a 911 dispatcher and stayed in that career path for almost ten years. In ten years I have spoken to hundreds if not thousands of suicidal callers. I like to think of Brody and all of the feelings and emotions I experienced after his passing and even the emotions I still feel today. I tried to relate to everyone I spoke with and encouraged them to reach out and speak to someone who knows them that will listen. Even if they feel like that person won’t listen, to at least give them a chance to be the person they need. Having that tough conversation of telling someone you’re struggling is a lot easier than the tough conversation your loved ones will have to have with friends and family.