Holding Space

Suicide doesn’t need a month, or a day, or a ribbon pinned to a shirt. When you’ve lived it, when you’ve stood on the other side of that phone call, when you’ve watched the light go out of someone you love by their own choice, you carry awareness every single day. It moves with you. It breathes with you. It settles into the spaces between your heartbeats.

They tell us there is no fault in suicide.. But isn’t that the greatest lie we tell to comfort ourselves? There is fault. Fault in the silence we keep. Fault in a society that whispers about mental illness but doesn’t talk loudly enough to shatter the stigma. Fault in the bullies who corner children until they feel there’s no escape. Fault in the adult bullies who weaponize their words, who crush others beneath the weight of ridicule, who forget that cruelty leaves scars just as deep as fists.

Fault in a culture that tells us to “be strong, "while punishing us for admitting when we’re weak.

And yet, if you’re the one left standing, searching for answers in the ashes, wondering what you did or didn’t do, I promise you this: your hands don’t carry the blame. Your love was not in vain. Your presence mattered more than you may ever know.

But we—every one of us—we can do better. We can stand in the places where light feels absent. We can see the children hiding behind forced smiles. We can refuse to ignore the signs, to dismiss the cries, to walk away because someone’s pain feels too heavy for us to bear.

If you cannot hold their hand, place someone else in their path who can. If you cannot speak the words, Be the bridge to someone who will. We are not powerless, even when the world convinces us otherwise.

Every day, you hold power. The power to listen. The power to stand. The power to love. The power to heal. The power to notice when silence is not peace, but surrender.

And maybe—just maybe—the power to change the ending for someone who still believes they have none left.

So use your power. Flip on the light. Because no life should end simply because it was inconvenient for someone else to step into the dark.