the last and first day

It's not my story. From two degrees away I've known her, the intense decline of someone else's friend and valued employee to the brink of madness. It's not me who watched her decompensate, going from helping others to desperately needing help, seeing her fall through the rabbit hole, the lengthly hospitalization, the medications, the despair. It's not me who watched her climb up on a tall building not too far from here on the first day of this new year, the anniversary of her birth. It's not me who watched her jump and fall. But her death has touched people I care for, folks who had tried to pick up the pieces for awhile now and this final rebuke cuts to the quick. The constant replaying, the grasping at straws.

I want to be less morose, full of joy and introspection. I really do.