The Reason He Stayed

Reflections on experiencing the suicide of someone you’ve ministered to

Written By Heather Velvet Johnson

What if

Instead of wondering

What could have been done differently to make him stay?

We have wonder

That he stayed as long as he did

And that we had the privilege of being a part of his choice to stay those final years

Too many of us have lost someone to suicide

Too often we carry regret or guilt

What if…

Maybe if I…

I wish I had…

The total truth is that the choice to leave

Is theirs and theirs alone

We talk about suicide a lot in my counseling program

When the topic comes up

I get tense

My heart rate goes up

I feel it in my gut

It’s too personal

The news came 2 months after I left Mongolia

Four months after my foreign co-worker left

Did he feel abandoned?

What if we had stayed?

 I had been asking the wrong questions.

I don’t want to be presumptuous but

What if the reason he stayed as long as he did was because of

The volunteers each year at camp

House Church

English classes

His best friends at the shelter

What if we all were a part of his decision to stay just a little longer

What an honor

To the ones with him those last

Years

Months

Hours

The ones who baptized him

Listened to his dreams

Laughed with him

Traveled across the world for him

Lived and grew up with him

We hold in our hands

Not the burden of not being enough

But a holy privilege of being a part of his life for the time we were given