“Who told you life wasn’t worth the fight? They were wrong, they lied.” – Rascal Flatts

As a Christian, I believe that God’s Will prevails over every life he creates. For the early years of my faith, that belief remained unshaken in my heart. Going through the sicknesses and loss of two of my grandparents, I thought I understood the pain of a loved one dying. Though devastated, I took comfort in trusting that God knew what he was doing, after all they were both ill and lived a great deal of their lives surrounded by joy and family. I never asked why God would have taken them, I knew it was good.

It wasn’t until I was 17 that I would truly learn the pain that came along with the question of why. I have both felt and witnessed the unadulterated pain that comes after a loved one commits suicide. But what scares me, if not how we all felt after, but the immeasurable torture they had to face leading to that moment. What haunts me, is the why.

A year ago this week, I learned the news that a boy I called my brother, a person whose beauty outshone the sun in my eyes, took his own life. A year has passed in my life, an entire year of tears and regret, and still I ask God why. Why did He let him get to that point? Why did He let him do it? Why didn’t he save him? It is so easy to blame God for what happened. After all, to those of us left behind, there is NO way that losing our friend, son, brother, lover was part of HIS plan! And I did. I blamed God for everything. For every tear my friends and I shed, for every night I didn’t sleep, for every time I thought of him and was forced to remember that he didn’t exist anymore. You hear people say that a piece of them will die with a one they love, and for those of you who have been blessed to not know the pain, it is true.

We test God and demand answers from Him as if it is our RIGHT to know, but what I’ve come to realize is that I, along with all the other people who have been left behind by choice, we will never know. Simply because we were never meant to. I realized in the past year that the WHY I was asking, was never truly directed at God, or at the memory of my friend, but at myself. Why didn’t I see it? Why did I not stop this? How could I look him in the eyes and not realize that in less than 12 hours he would decide to die? Answering these questions is an impossible task, it will never be done.

If I could go back in time, there were many things I would change. My biggest regret in life is not knowing that this would be the outcome. Suicide doesn’t have reason, there is no understanding it. But it has become a steadily increasing part of our culture. Here is my cry, make it stop. Whether there will ever be a stop to the pain, no one could say. Life is a beautiful and precious gift, and it needs to be taken as such in all occasions. If you happen to know that someone is depressed, speak up, be there. For all else, I believe in God, and I believe His love can heal all wounds. Be the person who shows the world that life is worth living, through kindness and love. Every soul has a meaning, a purpose and a place. Life is very much worth the fight. And if you’re reading this in heaven tonight boys, I will fight for my life and the one you left with me, for I know God’s grace encases you tonight.I still believe that God's Will prevails, if not always in the way we expect. Yet, at the end of this day, we will see God’s plan, and we will know why, as for today, to all left behind, take up the fight.