Gone

What is gone? 

What does it mean and how is it chosen? 

When is it chosen? 

Why?

My daughter and I processed the loss of her classmate in college who took their own life.

Devastating. 

We both held between us the love of our shared college community and the loss that it now knows.

It doesn’t have to be personal to feel it as personal because 

it sets off feelings 

and questions 

and perspectives that feel 

heavy

and winded.

“They are just gone,” she said to me.

“Yes.” 

And I was rushed back to a time when our public school lost a teacher. 

My middle child couldn’t sleep the night she found out. 

It was the idea that it couldn’t be undone. 

It cannot be taken back. 

It can be a choice and not a choice. 

And while my younger daughter, all those years ago, didn’t like the unfairness of death, 

my older daughter is now grappling with

“What if they made a mistake?”

and they have taken regret 

with them 

wherever

they are.

Though my children have lost family members whom they have loved dearly,

it is these losses

more on the fringes of their day to days

that have brought up such

deep thoughts 

and questions. 

Within the safety of the space from their heart, 

their minds can process the enormity of what it means when someone is

gone. 

And what it is when someone is

gone. 

And when it is chosen

and when it is not chosen.

But never why it is chosen. 

Never that, really.