April is soon to arrive!

And while I've finished my April pocket early, I had good reason. I will be traveling a bit the next two months to visit my mom first then to attend my daughters graduation in Louisiana. She'll be getting her degree in English with Women's studies as a minor. Then off to get her Masters - possibly in Kansas.

April is also one of those months where nothing good happened and everything that's good happened. I decided to focus on the good - my grandaughter was born in April. As apposed to my attempted suicide that was also in April. Having been to the deepest of pits and survived, I wonder daily if I should have. I don't see any great change in my life or in my pain - when things get bad and I can't see the good. I struggle every day just to stay alive, to keep my pain at bay, to hide my real thoughts from people who would probably run if they knew what I was thinking.

I think, if only I could find a reason for all the hurt and pain, I could make it all go away. But it never does. It's elusive, hinting one day that I'm close to an answer then slipping off to hide for another day.

When someone you know is hurting, depressed or in pain, whether physical or mental, do you know what to do or to say to that person? Do you know what they need? more than anything they just need to know they are loved, unconditionally.

A long time ago I had a friend who killed himself. In my youthfulness, I didn't know he was telling me that's what he was going to do and that it would be soon, I couldn't imagine life would be so bad as to actually do it. In all my years of depression up to this point, I had never actually made an attempt, even though I came close a few years after his. So his death came as a surprise to me, and I was saddened that he never knew how much I liked and respected him, loved him as a friend and a brother. He never knew that, I don't think, because I never told him. I thought there was more time.

Live life as if there is no more time. As if this is the last day you will ever see that person or talk to that person. Don't let words and actions wait till another day, a better moment. There may not be another day or moment. Love unconditionally! Love could mean the difference between life or death. Because some of us live that line. We don't want to but we do. And life is more than just the daily trials, life can be the hardest thing we do that day, that week or that month. For those of us who suffer deep depression, every hour lived is a milestone. Knowing someone will care deeply if we give up could be the difference between choosing life and giving up.

I'm telling you this because I have a friend who keeps me living each day. She's here to remind me I am not alone, even when I feel I am so terribly alone, she tells me I am not. So I vow to keep fighting, to keep trying.