An Open Letter To The Man I Lost To Suicide

I wonder if the lives lost to suicide look down from Heaven. My heart is heavy as my mind wanders. Unlike most nights, I need a space to share my thoughts – I can’t keep them inside right now.

I dedicate each day to you – because there is so much suffering still here. There is so much work left to be done. How can we change the world without your visionary leadership and inspiration?

I’m longing for confirmation that you truly know now how wide your influence spread and how deep of an impact you made on the hearts of us.

There is a sense of emptiness each day that I can’t seem to fill.

I’m searching for a sign to know that you see me.

I desperately need to know you still believe in me.

I ache for you to hold me accountable, to tell me I’m not giving my mission, my work, and my dreams – everything that I truly have.

I want you to I know that each day I teach I’m striving to make you proud. I don’t yet know how I’ll cope with never knowing for sure if that’s happening.

I keep playing over in my head the conversations I wish we would have had. I thought there would be time in the future.

I need your leadership. I cannot find a single person who embodies all that you were. Yet I find pieces of you in the simplest of moments.

Through this long journey ahead, as I continue to “fight the good fight” in a world without you, please guide me to find the leader inside of me.