The Netflix series, ‘13 Reasons Why,’ has undoubtedly taken the nation by storm. It is incredibly raw, emotional, gut wrenching, and in many ways, relatable. It has risen in popularity, giving pretty much all of its viewers a topic of conversation that needs to be discussed.

After finishing the series myself, I had so many different emotions and questions left unanswered. This allowed me to not only create my own endings and new beginnings for each character, but it also allowed me to create, think, question, and answer certain topics within myself. Not only was the show completely eye opening in topics I THOUGHT I knew a lot about, it led to a great deal of self reflection. Yes, the necessary, highly important topics of rape, personal actions towards others, and suicide came to mind, but something else, something not emphasized as much, became relevant to me too.

Her mother. That’s all I could think of. There were so many scenes in the show that just completely broke my heart, but the scene when Hannah’s mom had found her in the bathtub, where she finally decided to end her life, left an incredible mark on me. It was just something I couldn’t escape from.

“You’re okay, honey. You’re okay.” Probably one of the most heartbreaking lines in the entire show in my opinion. Mrs. Olivia Baker, Hannah’s mother, did the only thing she knew how in that moment. She begged for her daughter to trust her. But that trust should have been something instilled in their relationship a very long time ago. Even though her mind told her she was gone, Mrs. Baker was just trying to make everything okay, because isn’t that what all moms do? Don’t all moms have superpowers? Moms have the ability to fix everything. Moms can make your boo-boo feel better. Moms can tell you everything will be okay, and they always end up being right. But for Mrs. Baker, there was nothing she could do. The damage was already done. She tried putting the pieces of her broken daughter back together, even though she already knew it was too late. She did the only thing she knew how in that moment, and that was to be a mom.

I think it is pretty obvious that this topic effected me in deeper ways than most, leading me to writing this article right now. Something more needs to be addressed. A relationship between parents and their child is vital and tremendously needed. Yes, I am still ways away from being a mother myself, but knowing the relationship I have with my mom, it kills me to even think that some kids aren’t fortunate enough, or maybe not even brave enough, to be able to express themselves freely to their parents. In the grand scheme of things, it could potentially change a life, or even better, save one.

Hannah’s home life seemed to be happy and extremely normal. Her parents loved her, they all got along, she loved them too. There were no obvious flaws in what was portrayed. But when you take a closer look, EVERYONE was on different pages. Mrs. Baker was so involved in setting up the “ideal” life for Hannah, she couldn’t even see or notice inklings of Hannah’s underlying pain. On Hannah's end, she didn’t allow them to see her pain, because she mainly thought that she would just ignite the fire already set with every other issue she thought her parents had to worry about.

So that leads me to very big questions. What if Mrs. Baker got involved? What if she knew about Hannah’s issues and thoughts? What if that connection between her and her daughter became more powerful than her 13 reasons why she felt the need to end her life? All the “what ifs” eat at me, because sadly, there are hundreds of thousands of families that are effected by the act of suicide. Nearly 300,000 people commit suicide annually in just The United States alone.

300,000.

That’s a hard thing to grasp for me. We, as a community, need to make it okay to feel broken, hurt, and lost. But, it should start from the connection between the child and his/her parents. We should at least try.