Trish

A few weeks back I learned a friend I had known since Jr. High School had passed away last July.

Although the cause of her death was somewhat mysterious when I learned the news it appeared as though she had taken her own life.

Today I obtained confirmation, without a doubt she killed herself.

In high school my biggest involvement was drama. Although I can't really act, have no ability to either sing or dance, I was somehow able to get myself into many productions, including musicals.

I can't really recall, I must have thought I had some talent, yet upon a clearer reflection, I really didn't.

Trish could sing, she could dance, she was a great actress, and she loved the theater.

By far, the best part of drama was the friends. Misfits finding each other, we were a pretty tight tribe. I fell away from my drama friends until a two years ago when I attended a reunion for theater arts groups.

So over the last few years I have exchanged e-mails, communicated via facebook, this is how I discovered the death of our friend.

Recently with this news there are been a flurry of e-mails, everyone trying to sort it out. It has taken a prominent spot in my thoughts over the last three weeks. I can't shake it, thinking about her, thinking about her family, knowing how difficult this year has been for them.

In most of the e-mails my friends have expressed there were times in most of their lives that they suffered from depression. I have no idea if the fact we were all theater people plays into this commonality, but our drama department was pretty typical, fat girls who fell in love with Gay boys, and various derivations of this same theme.

I wasn't a fat girl, but I was sort of a Gay boy, I guess.

So now we are all e-mailing each other like its 1980, it's the processing of suicide I think, it takes a long time to get your head around it.

In truth, many of us has stood at the abyss and considered how much easier it would be to just jump. Those of us who have been so emotionally tired our bodies literally ached, understand in a bad moment we may have also made a regrettable choice.

In high school I was the school newspaper photographer. Because she was really very talented there was an article written about Trish and I got the assignment to take the picture.

I stood on top of an upright piano with her sitting at it and took a shot with her looking up at me smiling...and when I think of her that is what I see.