I lost touch with her after she transferred from St Cecilia's after seventh grade. I did not hear much about her for the next few years, those few years before a hospital nurse found her hanging from a black leather belt.
I find it interesting that she ended up passing in the springtime, as she herself was in the springtime of her life. Spring is a time of rejuvenation and rebirth, of growth and change. It has become a bittersweet time for me, a time of regrowth as well as a reminder of mortality. She died in April, a week and two days after my 15th birthday. Since then, each of my birthdays has marked another year that Aurora did not get to live.
Growing up, the idea of suicide was often on my mind. The constant fear, uncertainty, and change that came with going to school, growing up, and being inexperienced often seemed overwhelming. That, coupled with constant torment faced from my peers made it unbearable. Going to a catholic school, I often heard the promise of heaven and eternal life with God after death. Why then, I often asked myself, don't I just end this now? Eternal peace sounded a whole lot better that having to wake up again, to go to school again, to face all that rejection and ridicule again.
I used to think that our lives were ours to live. Therefore, why can they not be ours to not live? In my view, the decision to end our lives was ours to make. After Aurora died, I learned that our lives are not only ours to live, but ours to give. That is, every time we interact with any one, we place a part of ourselves within them. No matter how insignificant our contact with them may seem, we affect them. So when we die, that part of each person we affected suffers. Suicide does not consider this suffering that it causes; it only seeks to end its own. It is the ultimate act of selfishness.
It's impossible to know exactly how your life has affected those of others. I knew Aurora for only a few years, but word of her passing brought me down in such a way that I cannot imagine the feelings of her family and others who've known her for her entire life.
I secretly hoped that I would be playing Nintendo when she would knock on my door again, drinking a can of Jolt Cola. I wanted to tell her of an idea for a science experiment that uses nitro glycerin instead of vinegar to make a more effective volcano. I wanted her to yell, and sing, and dance, and laugh...
But there it was, spelled out in black ink and four-color photos on crinkled white newsprint:
She's gone...
Gone? Gone where? What is death? Before, it was something that happened to people after they lived a long, fulfilling life. It happened to grandparents after they've seen that their children can do well without them, and their grandchildren are starting off on adventures of their own.
This time, it happened to someone my age--someone young, sad, and disappointed. What is death? This time, I needed to know. It was no longer enough to think, believe, or speculate. I needed to know. But no one knows, and no one can know, and my frustration with this grew with each passing day.