I feel like I missed the mark by a few months; September was national suicide awareness month. But even now this is as prevalent as ever.

I want to make this short and to the point, because there’s no beating around the bush with this. There is no sugar coating this. This is serious, this is real, this is happening now.

On March 7, 2012, my father committed suicide. That’s it. That’s my story. No matter how sad it was before or after, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters was that one act. That one act of desperation that may or may not have been able to be prevented; there’s no way to know, but we have to try. Because this is happening now. This is happening to women, men, children, everyone.

This is a crazy time. So much hate is radiated toward one another. I myself am not clean of this sin. But please, try to be kind. No matter how happy or how arrogant someone may seem, there is always going to be someone on the inside that you can’t see, can’t hear. You have no idea what weight someone else is carrying on their shoulders, if they go home and scream into their pillow that they want to give up, that they want to die. No one knows.

Maybe one act of kindness won’t change their mind, but if we come together, 100 or 1,000 acts of kindness really might make all the difference to that one person’s world.

Every 40 seconds someone commits suicide. Every 40 seconds someone’s friends and family are left in the wake of destruction. Every 40 seconds a mother has lost her child, or a sister has lost her brother, or a child has lost her father. Every 40 seconds…You can make the difference between catastrophe and a mended heart.

R.I.P.