Hey Friend…

Hang in there. You lost your mom so fast, they told you she still had years to live and it turned out to be weeks. She was so young, no one knows that better than me. She was exactly three weeks older than me.

You told me tonight you’re depressed, and thank God, you’re reaching out for help. I’m proud of you for that, because when you’re depressed, it can be hard to move. You lose faith in the possibility of change, so you don’t bother to take any steps that might make things better.

But you’ve been down there before and I don’t think you want to be there again. Your life is looking good these days, or it was before this happened, and you don’t want to lose everything like you did the last time. I want to hug you for recognizing all of those things, and I want you to take action before you start to feel worse and lose track of their truth.

There are things in your life I hope you can change, people I hope you will tell to shove off and others I hope you will let in. You have us. It isn’t the same, I know, but we will never leave.

(I know you’ll never tell those people to shove off, and it wouldn’t really be right to do so anyway. But is it too much to ask that they learn some boundaries? It would be like a light in a dark room, a room that had gradually been getting dimmer, so you didn’t realize how little you could see until it was illuminated.)

Call us, we’ll come over and cook dinner. Bad idea. We’ll pick up a pizza. We’ll spend the night, stay up and talk or watch you sleep. Call us, even if you don’t know what you need. We’ll figure it out.

Okay, I can’t really send you this letter.  All I can do is back my words up with actions, so I’m going to go do a little of that right now.

We love you.

Image Credits: Puppy/Kitty © Claudia Nass–stock.adobe.com; Angel Statue © radekcho–stock.adobe.com