I'm Thankful

I write this post with a somewhat an extremely heavy heart. This week I lost a friend, in a way one should never lose anyone by them choosing to leave before their time. 

The thing is with this particular friend, we haven't actually spoken in over a year but we've been facebook friends and have sent the odd text to check in with one another a share a joke we knew the other would appreciate but when I received the message to say "T passed away". I went numb. How could a vibrant, driven, beautiful 28 year old mind be gone from the world like this? 

Then the next message came through "He killed himself". Now maybe I should take a moment to say I am an Apple girl so the message popped up on screen but was paying for something so just glanced at it thinking I must need sleep because I'm clearly hallucinating. I wasn't because the next message was "He ..." I'll spare you the details and I'll respect his memory as well as his family's privacy by not sharing the sordid details. 

It's four days later and I'm still feeling like this is just surreal. I wanted to share my speculations as to why someone would choose to end their own lives but the truth is, I have no right to play guessing games. 

What I will say is that when you chose to pursue a certain path in life and if you're not 100% in love with it and decide to take an early exit from that road, please ask for help. Please ask for someone to listen to you. Please find some sort of spiritual guidance, whatever you need to push you back to the safe zone. You don't have to jump off the road you're on. You just have to look for a different offramp.

I apologize for all the highway innuendos but I can't think of any others right now because right now, even though I wanted to share this with you, I am still mourning the loss of life that was once my friends. 

I find that I'm somewhat obsessed with his page now and consistently checking what other people are feeling or saying about him. This is just unreal and while I'm pretty sure I could have written the best post I've ever written and one worthy of the loss of this incredible person but instead this is just an OK post filled with loads of feelings the most being this .....

I'M THANKFUL that I've managed to push through dark times thanks to my faith, family and a support system. 

I hope you have all of those today. It's thanksgiving in the States but I have more than enough American friends to feel like I could share my thankful post with all of you from sunny South Africa.

What are you most thankful for today?