I was invited to attend a memorial for someone I met a few years ago through my daughter’s world — a woman named Tena.
I didn’t know her deeply, but I knew her kindness. She passed by suicide, and this is how I’m choosing to honor her.
Content note: This piece mentions suicide and grief.
Please take care of yourself while listening or reading.
Step away or return later if you need to.
Transcript
I didn’t know Tina well, not in the way that earns you a front-row seat at a funeral.
We met because our children’s lives brushed against each other, and that was enough for small talk that turned into warmth.
She was one of those people who radiated ease — quick to smile, slow to judge.
The kind of woman you assume will always be there, even if you only cross paths once or twice a year.
So when I heard that she had completed suicide, the word completed hit harder than the loss.
It sounded so final, so tidy, like a task checked off a list.
But nothing about her life, or the ache she must have carried, could have been that simple.
People like to call suicide wrong, or selfish, or a symptom.
Maybe sometimes it is.
But I keep thinking about how we talk about choice until the choice makes us uncomfortable.
Maybe Tina was clearer than we allow the suffering to be.
Maybe she reached the edge and decided she was done climbing.
I can’t claim to know.
I think about death every day — not as a wish, just a companion thought, like the hum of a refrigerator in the background.
It started when my mother died, and then my ex-husband.
Death has been a constant teacher, reminding me that none of us asked to be here, and yet we try so hard to stay.
When I picture Tina now, I imagine her kitchen light on at dawn.
Maybe she made tea.
Maybe she stood for a long time with her hands around a warm cup, quiet for the first time in months.
I like to think she found a kind of stillness.
I didn’t go to the memorial.
Crowds make my body buzz, and grief in public feels like too many frequencies at once.
Instead I baked — something simple, something that filled the house with the smell of living.
That was my offering, my way of saying goodbye.💎
Closing
For the ones who chose stillness.
For those of us still learning to stay.
Thank you for listening to this week’s Neurodivergent Gumbo.
If this piece resonates, share it with someone who might need a quiet moment today.
You deserve gentleness. You deserve another sunrise.
If you’re struggling or thinking about suicide, you don’t have to face it alone.
In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime.
Outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com for international hotlines.
Someone is always ready to listen.
