I Wish You Had Stayed: A Letter on Love, Loss, and the Life Still Ahead
“I hope you knew how loved you are before we ever had to say it to the sky.” – Sara Rian
Content Note: This post discusses suicide, suicide loss, grief, and suicidal thoughts. Please take care of yourself while reading.
Today is September 10th, and that day has and always will be your birthday. Now, this date carries another meaning for me. September 10th is also World Suicide Prevention Day.
Today, you would have turned 29, anxious in your mind knowing that your next birthday would bring you to the age of 30—only 365 days away.
I can almost hear the jokes you would make about how “old” I am, given that I'm 32 and you would only be turning 29. I wish you were here to make us laugh with your jokes and for us to remind you that, yes, the age of 30 was right around the corner. I wish we could eat your favorite dinner with your daughter and wish you a happy birthday.
Even though you secretly hated your birthday, you always put a smile on your face that day because it mattered so much to your daughter. You knew that, for her, your birthday was like a national holiday. She wanted to make your day so special.
For your 27th and final birthday here on earth, she whispered to me, “For Dad's birthday, I know exactly what I want to give him!” I asked her what that was. She replied, “I am going to give him so much of my love because that is his favorite thing.”
For a little girl, she somehow knew that the best gift you could ever receive was simply her love. And it was. The love from your daughter was by far the most special thing to you. I think about that moment often now.
Because if there is anything I wish you could have understood before you left us, it is just how incredibly loved you were. I wish you could have seen the things to come through your windshield rather than the things in your rearview mirror. I wish you believed in yourself as much as we did. I wish, in those final days and moments, you could have seen yourself as we saw you—the person you truly were at your core.
You were a dad—someone who loved his daughter more than anything in this world. Someone who wanted so badly to protect her, teach her, guide her, and give her a beautiful life.
You were a hard-working diesel mechanic, operating your own business, who was passionate about your work and cared deeply about your customers.
You were a son who loved his family so much. A brother who would go to great lengths to protect his siblings. An uncle who made his niece and nephew laugh and loved them so much. You were so many things to so many people. You were imperfect, as we all are. You made mistakes. You had struggles. There were parts of yourself you were still trying to figure out.
But you were never a burden.
You were a special person with an entire life still ahead of you. And I wish, even for a moment, you could have seen yourself through the eyes of the people who loved you. I wish the version of you who was hurting could have met the versions of you that were still waiting ahead. I wish you could see who you would have become.
I will never fully understand the pain you were experiencing. I don't know how heavy it had become or what your mind was telling you in those final moments. Maybe you believed there was no way through it. Maybe you believed that leaving would finally make the pain stop. And sometimes, I wonder if you believed that somehow, we would eventually be better off without you.
We weren't.
We survived losing you. We learned how to wake up the next morning and the morning after that. Eventually, we learned how to laugh again. We celebrated birthdays and holidays. We went back to work. Your daughter continued growing. Life continued because life has this almost cruel way of moving forward even when someone you love no longer gets to move forward with it.
We learned how to continue living without you because we had no other choice. But continuing without you does not mean any of us were better off without you. Being capable of surviving someone’s absence is not the same thing as being better because they’re gone.
I don't know if you believed your pain was too heavy for anyone else to understand or help you carry. But I know that I wish you had given us the chance to help you carry your pain instead of leaving us to learn how to carry the pain of losing you.
Suicide does not end pain. It changes where that pain lives.
I don't mean that your pain simply became ours. Whatever you were carrying belonged to you, and I wish more than anything that you had allowed us to understand it. Your death created a different pain—a pain that didn't exist before we lost you.
That pain lives in birthdays like today. It lives in your now eight-year-old, incredible, smart, beautiful daughter who has to grow up without her dad. It lives in the empty spaces beside every milestone you should have been here to witness. It lives in photographs (although you hated having your picture taken) that will never be replaced with new ones.
It lives in the stories we tell over and over again because we can no longer make new ones with you. It lives in questions that will never have answers. It lives in all the love we will forever have for you, even though you aren’t here to receive that love anymore. It lives in the unbearable permanence of knowing that we will never get another minute, another birthday, another joke, another smile, another hug, another memory with you.
And now, I want to speak to the person who may have found these words while carrying a pain that feels impossible to survive.
Your pain deserves to be acknowledged. No one truly understands what you are going through in these moments. Your pain is personal to you. Your experiences, your thoughts, your fears, and whatever has brought you to this place belong to a story only you have lived.
Please, if you are reading this, know that your pain is never a burden to the people who love you. Those who love you can help you carry some of that pain with you. You are allowed to admit that you are hurting. You are allowed to admit that you are exhausted. You are allowed to admit that your pain is becoming too heavy to carry alone. But please don't mistake needing help carrying your pain for evidence that you shouldn't be here anymore.
There is something I desperately wish Jayden could have known, and something I hope you can hear from me now:
Your pain deserves somewhere to go that doesn't include you leaving this world forever.
Maybe you believe the people you love would be “better off” without you. Maybe your mind has convinced you that without you here, those you love would have an easier time in life. Maybe you feel guilt or shame in asking for help carrying some of the weight of the pain you feel. But please, let the people who love you speak for themselves.
Please tell them you are hurting. Please be honest about your thoughts. Please give them the chance to sit beside you through the hard times. They don’t have to understand your pain perfectly to love you through it. They might not have all the right words or the solutions to fix it. They just need the chance to know so they can help you through it. And you need to know that you are not alone in your pain.
As someone who has lost someone to suicide, being a suicide loss survivor is a hard position to be in. I wish I had known the weight of the pain he was carrying rather than having to spend the rest of my life wondering how much he was carrying and how long he had been carrying it alone. I wish I had known the depth of his pain before it was too late.
I wish that, in your darkest moments, leaving this world hadn’t felt like the only way out.
And please don't stay only because of what your absence would mean to someone else. You deserve the opportunity to stay for yourself, too. There are versions of you that you haven't met yet. There are parts of yourself you haven't discovered. There are places you haven't been, people you haven't met, and memories you haven't made yet. There are things you have yet to accomplish, laughs you have yet to have, and growth that is still to come.
I cannot promise you that everything ahead will be easy. I cannot promise you a life without pain. None of us are given that promise. But not being able to see what's ahead doesn't mean there is nothing there. Sometimes the things in our rearview mirror become so overwhelming that we can't see clearly through the windshield in front of us. Please give yourself the chance to find out what's down the road.
And to you, Jayden, on what should have been your 29th birthday: I wish you knew.
I wish you knew how loved you are and that you were still here to receive that love. I wish you knew that we never expected you to be anyone other than yourself. I wish you knew that your pain did not make you weak or a burden. I wish you were here to see your daughter grow up. I wish, more than anything, that you would have stayed.
Happy Heavenly 29th Birthday Jayden.
Today, we will celebrate your birthday much like we did when you were still here with us. For the second year in a row, we are eating dinner at your favorite restaurant, reminiscing about the wonderful memories you left with us, all while wishing you were here.
Life has never been or felt the same since you left. I hope somehow, somewhere, you can look down and see how loved you still are and forever will be.
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional distress, you do not have to carry this moment alone. In the United States and its territories, you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or use their online chat. Support is available 24/7, is free and confidential, and you do not have to be suicidal to reach out. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. Click the link below for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline website.
