The End of Life

I have this box. The lid is this shiny magenta color, and the base is shiny silver. It's a Clinique box, the one that came with a gift package of their signature "Happy Heart" perfume.

Inside this box, I keep all of my little treasures. Old cards with extra-special messages. Photos of Gloria. A blue ribbon from a swim meet when I was 5. Those kinds of things.

I pulled this box out tonight and carefully sifted through these old memories until I found this.



It's the last note that Molli ever wrote to me.



When I met Molli, I was in 7th grade and she was in 8th grade. Molli was my best friend Kim's sister's best friend. Get that? Let me diagram it for you.

Me + Kim = Best friends
Kim + Pam = Sisters
Pam + Molli = Best friends

Or as Molli put it in the first line of this last note: "Hey there girly 'o or I would call you my sista's sista's sista, if you understand that."

Molli's family lived right across the street from Kim's family. Many a time I would be over at Kim's and Molli would be there hanging out with Pam.

I remember this one night more than the others...Pam and Molli had gone out to dinner and then to a movie. They both came back not feeling well. We chalked it up to food poisoning, and Kim and I took care of them.

I don't know why that sticks out in my head so much.

Anyway.

I don't have the words to say what happened on the events leading up to July 16, 2001, so I'll take from the website that her mother started. (http://www.mollisgarden.com)

The night before she died, I knocked on her door and opened after hearing her cheerful, "Come in!" I was greeted with a loving, "Hi, Mom!" and noticed she was in her usual position on the floor, writing something, which I discovered later to be her goodbye letter to her friends by the time on the letter. I said, "Whatcha doin'?" with a smile. "Just writing a letter!" she said so happily. How can someone feel so happy while planning to end their life? Experts tell us that once someone's mind is made up, they're actually at peace with their decision. I asked her if she'd like to watch a movie with me while eating dinner and she said, "Sure! I'll be out in a little bit, K?"

When she came out we talked about renting a movie. She seemed terribly concerned about getting batteries for the old tape recorder she always used when recording her songs that she wrote. I asked if I could just pick them up on my way home from work the next day and she pleaded with me and said she'd ride a long so I gave in. One thing that startled me was when she refused my offer to let her drive to the store. I said, "Really? You sure? You ok, Sweetie?" She said, "Yeah, just not this time, K?" I remember that bothered me because none of my girls ever refused the chance to drive while in Driver's Ed. I wish now I would've followed through with it more, but I guess I just thought she was having a tough night.

When we parked she said, "Mom, would you mind terribly if I didn't go in with you? I'm kinda embarrassed at how bad my acne is today." I said, "Of course not, Sweetie, but I happen to think you're beautiful just the way you are." She said, "Thanks for understanding, Mom. I love you." "I love you, more." I replied, feeling badly at how sad she looked. When I came out not only with her batteries but a scary movie she'd been requesting for a long time, she perked up and was excited so I dismissed what had happened. Another one of those "If only I..." again.

While making dinner, I listened to her new song, It's Up To You, that she was recording while playing it on the piano. It sounded beautiful - her best ever and I told her so. She said she promised Pam she'd have it done. It's very painful to be remembering and relating this. Last conversations and visions are all we have at times so to cut it short. We watched part of a movie while we ate and then started her scary one to which shortly thereafter I told her I needed to go to bed for work the next morning and asked if she'd mind if I didn't watch her scary movie with her. She of course said, "Sure, that's ok. Good night, Mom. I love you." How it makes my heart ache now that I didn't make the time to snuggle with her for as long as she needed and wanted me to. I can never get that back again.

The next morning was the usual hurried morning where we'd pass each other getting ready for work and Driver's Ed. I stuck my head in the bathroom while she was getting ready and told her how pretty she was and she said the usual, "Thanks! So are you!" Everything seemed very normal. She called out to me from her bedroom to not forget to sign her form and when I told her I already had and that it was laying on the table, she said, "Thanks, Mom! I love you!"

When I was ready to leave, I called to her and said, "I'm leaving now, Molli. Have a good day and I'll see you when I get home. I love you!" She called back, "Ok! I love you more!" Those words still ring in my ears. They were the last she ever spoke to me.

When I arrived home, around 1:45, the house was very quiet - almost unnervingly so, as I think back. I called out and there was no answer. I noticed there was no note left from Allie or Molli explaining where they were, which was unlike them, but passed it off. On my way back down the hall from changing clothes in my room, I noticed the bathroom door was closed and the light was on. My first thought was, "Oh good! Molli's here!" I always looked forward to seeing her.

I knocked and called out but there was no answer. I opened the door slowly, becoming increasingly aware that something was very wrong. Molli was laying, fully clothed in the bath tub. I ran to her, panicking - thinking she somehow had fallen and hit her head. Every thought but suicide ran through my mind. However, when I saw the gun - MY gun - in my heart it was my fault, even though I'd left the gun locked and the bullets hidden, I was so shocked, terrified, and horrified.

There are many more wretched emotions that race through your mind and heart when suicide happens to your child. There are so many "If only I would have...", "Why didn't I just...", and the most devastating is the visions you carry in your mind if you're the one to find your child - no matter what method they've chosen - it's still a lifeless body that you gave life to and carried inside of you and now that child made the decision to end her life and change yours and your family's forever. I ran and called 911, hoping against hope that she was still alive. She had to be! This couldn't happen to my baby!

The words "potential suicide... my little girl" strangled my throat as I tried to maintain control for the dispatcher. I tried CPR... nothing - and by the time, probably only minutes later, the first paramedics arrived, I knew she was really gone. What I felt that day was terror, horror, shock, panic, hopelessness, emptiness, guilt, and immense grief, all rolled into one. I screamed, cried, couldn't breathe because my heart literally was suffocating - and I still had to tell my other children.

Someone from either the police or the fire department made the call to my daughter's apartment - not revealing anything except that something had happened and I needed them, so that they wouldn't drive in a panic. I had to break their hearts and tell them that their baby sister was gone and what she'd done. I had to tell Kelly that his promise to teach this little girl, that he'd grown to love over the last 4 years, how to change a tire just the night before - was gone from us forever. I had to get word to her dad, Paul, that his youngest child took her life.

Police and paramedics were everywhere. I was totally alone in the world during that time. I was being asked questions over and over - having to relate my steps before finding Molli. I knew that it was standard procedure, but I was supposed to be sitting with Molli and sharing our day not doing this! They told me she had left two notes - one for Family and one for Friends - in her room. I vaguely remember thinking, "How could I not know she would do this???" The detective's assumption was that Molli had been planning this as she had obviously hidden the gunlock and only 1 bullet missing from where I'd hidden them. "How could I not know???" kept racing through my mind.

The street was filled with emergency vehicles, police cars and worried neighbors and friends, including Molli's best friends - not knowing what had happened to whom. Allie was the first to arrive home and then Heidi and Melissa & Kelly shortly afterward. We weren't allowed near her. I didn't even get to hold her in my arms before they took her away four hours later. They allowed me to kiss her, touch her face and say goodbye right before they left. It's like there was no closure - not that there ever could be with your child. How could I let them just take my baby? In 15 years there was rarely a time that I didn't know exactly where she was and that she was safe.

I just remember fighting to breathe and not scream - not wanting to sleep because I knew the very first thought would be that she was gone forever when I woke. The DISBELIEF! I had planned on choosing the movie we'd watch snuggled together on the couch that night, and instead I was sitting there with a stranger talking about decisions about her funeral! "Oh Molli, how could you leave me like that!!??" is what I remember sobbing over and over, rocking back and forth, unable to sit still.

On that day, my mom and I were dropping Kim off at her house when we saw the mass of emergency vehicles across the street. The vans and trucks and ambulances, all a blur of bright whites and reds and yellows. And then there was another vehicle. Parked in the driveway. Dark. Black. The word written in bold white on the back.

CORONER.

Kim's mom popped her head in our van and told us that Molli had taken her own life.
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Fast forward to today.

1:45pm

I was sitting in Kim's office for our weekly chat, going over the latest life issues.

I said something funny and as Kim and I are laughing, I accidently swallow my gum. (Smooth, right?) Kim gets up to get me some hot water and cracks the door. I look out and Alex, the front desk person, says that when she's finished with me, there's an emergency that she needs to attend to. I thought, "Well, that's not good. CAPS is usually only called when it's a life-threatening psychological emergency. Kim comes back in and said something to the effect of "There's an emergency I have to tend to. I think you swallowing your gum pretty much ends the session." (Oh Kim, I'm glad you can reciprocate my witty banter.) I schedule another appointment with Alex, and head back to my apartment. I stopped at the railing of the student center stairs between C-Street and the third floor, and watched Kim as she walked the opposite direction, curious to where she was going. I watched as she turned to go to into Pigott before I continued on to my apartment.

When I got back, Reba was like, "Did you hear what happened in Pigott?" I shook my head and she told me that someone had jumped off some balcony. Without any further details, all I could say was "Wow." Over. And over. And over. Then, we went and did some studying in the pavilion, before heading over to Pigott for the end of the year Circle K get together. There, we learned the circumstances of what actually happened.

A girl, an international student, had climbed over the second floor railing (INSIDE!) and paced back and forth across the beam that connects the big white pillars to the second floor. Speaking some Asian language, her friend translated that she was going to jump. She paced for 30-45 minutes, all the while police and public safety and CAPS trying to talk her down. But she jumped. Just like that. She landed on the hard, cold concrete, and at the very least had a broken leg. She also guaranteed herself a 72 hour stay in an inpatient psych ward.

But the way that I heard the scene described was just bone-chilling. This girl pacing. Everyone watching. (It was lunch time, and between classes, so there were a lot of people.) When she jumped, everyone was screaming.

I wasn't even there, and yet I have a video of the incident playing on repeat in my head.

Everyone is talking about it, and even though they're not joking or making light of it, something just doesn't....sit right with me. Everyone is like, "She must have been crazy, blah blah blah."

Well, I can tell you that Molli wasn't crazy. And her mom says the same:

Molli believed in God and in His son, Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She believed in the goodness of people. To Molli, there was no skin color, no race or religion - just one nation, under God. One of her most important beliefs concerning people was that everyone deserves respect. "People are too quick to make fun of others and make them feel badly." is something similar to what she used to say to me. To her that was simply meanness.

Molli was the last person that I ever expected to take their own life. She was friends with everyone; a beacon of light and life and laughter in the murky halls of Saghalie Junior High.

Yet inside the bright and shiny exterior lied a girl who questioned what change she could really make in this world.

In the notes that she left behind for her friends and family, she wrote about how she was afraid that she wasn't good enough (not her exact words) to really make the change that she wanted in this world.

Oh Molli, if only...

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A song came on while in the shower tonight.

Why don't we open up / Knowing that we all falter / When will we learn / to reach out for each other
"Falter" --Lori McKenna

I'll let you think about that one.

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I'll close with another song that sums it up...



"Goodbye" --Martina McBride

Occurred to me the other day
You been gone now a couple years
Well I guess it takes a while
For someone to really disappear
And I remember where I was
When the word came about you
It was a day much like today
The sky was bright and wide and blue

And I wonder where you are
And if the pains ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say good-bye

Today my heart is big and sore
It's trying to put right through my skin
Won't see you anymore
I guess that's finally sinking in
Cause you can't make somebody see
With the simple words you say
All their beauty from within
Sometimes they just look away

And I wonder where you are
And if the pains ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say good-bye