my highschool friend passed by suicide November 2020. we weren’t insanely close but stayed connected through mutual friends. early 2020, we started chatting on the phone every once in a while and we tried making plans to hangout with a mutual friend but never did. one of our last phone convos she randomly facetimed me at 3am, and we just sat for 3 hours talking and giggling about life and being women in this shitty world and wanting better lives for ourselves. she also reached out via text and we chatted for a few days - nothing serious, just what we were up to; eventually i got really busy with work and dropped off contact - i completely ignored the last text she sent me and our friendship never grew. a few months later, she passed by suicide. this was the 5th suicide attempt in her life and heartbreakingly was the successful one. her friends didn’t show up for her and she’d fallen out with many of them that year, and i have never been able to let go of the thought that maybe if i’d just replied… if i’d been a friend who’d given her the time of day? i know rationally i didn’t know she was thinking of suicide those few times we spoke, and i feel selfish to think i could have been the one to “save her” as if her family wasn’t fighting tooth and nail but theres that part that has never left me. her family and i have become really close in the wake of her passing as i’ve tried my best to be there as support, and in some ways that makes me feel better for the fact that i didn’t show up for her but i also feel so much guilt. i see the ways their grief for her has never ended (and of course i imagine never will) and i feel like a fraud, who could have been there or helped their daughter and didn’t. who didn’t even reply to a random text about baking and my heart just feels so heavy. when we get together, her presence is so strong around us and its a comfort but a reminder of everything i didnt do. learning all these things about her from her family posthumously is both so special and sad - i grieve so much the person i didnt get to know as well as the lovely person i only knew for a short while. i would give anything to go back in time and reply to that text