When someone dies by suicide, there can be so much focus on the ending that we forget there was an entire life before it. There were years of birthdays, holidays, family gatherings, inside jokes, ordinary afternoons, favorite things and moments that probably didn’t seem important at the time but become precious after someone is gone.

I think about that often. When you’ve lost someone this way, your mind can become stuck on the questions surrounding their death. You remember the things you wish you had noticed. You think about what you would do differently if you could go back. You wonder what was happening inside their heart that you couldn’t see. Those thoughts are real, and they are part of suicide loss, but they aren’t the whole story.

There was a life before the loss.

There was a person who laughed, loved, irritated you, made you proud, made you worry and left their fingerprints on the lives of the people around them. There were things about them that made you smile without even trying. There were memories that belonged to your family long before suicide became part of your story.

I don’t want to lose those memories while trying to understand the loss.

I want to remember the whole person.

As a mom, I know how quickly our children grow. We spend years collecting little pieces of their lives without realizing how valuable those pieces will become. Pictures on our phones. Something they said that made everyone laugh. A silly habit. A favorite food. A particular expression. A memory from when they were little that nobody else would understand the way we do.

Those things matter.

And when a child dies, I don’t want the final chapter to swallow all the chapters that came before it. I don’t want suicide to become the only word people use when they talk about them. I want their life to remain part of our family’s story.

So today, remember the life too.

Tell the story that makes you laugh. Look at the pictures. Say their name. Talk about the things they loved. Let your children and grandchildren know who they were. Tell the stories that might otherwise disappear with time.

Grief doesn’t require us to talk about death every time we talk about the person we lost.

Sometimes healing looks like remembering them exactly as they were on an ordinary day, before everything changed.

They were here.

They were loved.

They mattered.

And their life was so much bigger than the way it ended.

Remember their life, too.

#SuicidePreventionMonth #SuicideLoss #RememberTheirLife #GriefAfterSuicide #EveryLifeMatters