Wednesday I had a therapy appointment. It had been set before I knew about my friend’s suicide, and I kept it because I knew I needed to talk to someone about what I was struggling with. Because grief is a struggle. At it’s very core, it’s an upset of everything we thought would remain constant in our lives. It’s the way we process loss, but it’s also a reminder that feelings, emotions, and hurts don’t always heal in a linear fashion. The 5 Stages of Grief don’t just begin and end, moving from 1 to 5 in a chronological order; they intersect, they overlap, they jump around. They do this for years, sometimes even a lifetime.

Grief itself even shapeshifts, changes the color of its scales so that we might even think it’s gone until something reminds us that it is, indeed, still there. It might look different, sound different, feel different, but it’s not gone. These things are difficult to understand and make sense of, and I knew I needed to get my therapist’s insight. Even if that meant just speaking what I felt to someone I knew wouldn’t judge me, it would be good for me.

And so I did. And it was a much needed conversation, but there was something she said as we were talking that has really stuck with me. It makes me feel a whole host of complicated things, but at its core, I think it’s true.

Choosing to take his life was his prerogative.

I firmly believe that we all should get to decide for ourselves what’s best for us. Too often society, culture, religion, family drill into us that suicide is selfish or sinful or weak, but the truth is that it is a choice, just like all other choices we face in this life. Yes, it’s a tragic one, and yes it’s one that carries with it a lot of complicated facets, but it is a choice. One he made knowingly, not impulsively.

I’m not arguing in favor of suicide. But I am pointing out the incredibly sick form of cruelty there is in shaming someone into “staying alive” when that form of life is nothing but suffering.

Now, I will add a huge caveat here that I believe that anyone even feeling as though their only choices are death or living a life of suffering is enormously negligent on the part of greater society.

If we lived in a world where health care was accessible, affordable, where people didn’t have to choose between their rent and their medication, where people weren’t becoming homeless at increasingly high rates and facing tremendous amounts of debt just to survive, where whole communities weren’t literally starving, and where people with mental, emotional, and physical disabilities weren’t cast aside and seen as less than human for simply existing in their own skin, I don’t think this issue would even be a question. If we lived in a world that gave a shift about the quality of life for all of us, then Ryan might not have felt so hopeless. Because let’s be real: people who suffer from suicidal ideation feel hopeless, worthless, like they’re a burden to the people in their lives.

But we don’t live in that world. In fact we live in a world where human beings actively fight against building a better, more caring world. Ryan’s world was once of suffering, from the time he was a kid until the moment he stopped breathing. And while I can look around and see the beauty he had in his life, it’s horrifically selfish of me to expect him to have seen the same beauty because I didn’t live in his body, in his brain, with his thoughts. Emotional pain and suffering take a massive toll, and I have been in the place of feeling as though it hurt too much to keep going. When you feel like the only kind of life you can expect is one where you’re not just unhappy, but one where you will be miserable without any end of misery in sight, suicide begins to feel like the best option.

Ryan deserved peace and happiness here in this life. Full stop. Period. No caveats.

Ryan also deserved the opportunity to decide his own fate for himself. Full stop. Period. No caveats.

My therapist said something else that I thought was true. Ryan had left me his words, validating my importance in his life. She suggested that I leave him my words, validating his choice.

Ryan, I don’t blame you. I wish we lived in a better world, a world that actually deserved your brilliance, your humor, your deep compassion and love for other people. I wish I could have taken the punches thrown at you. Or even eased the burden a little. If I could have, I would have because you were made of such selfless, kind, caring energy. You came from an environment of toxicity and anger, but you chose to be kind. You chose to care. You chose to love. This world didn’t deserve you, and I’m so sorry that it let you down.

You said that I was immensely inspiring to you, and I hope that you knew how inspiring you were to me. You suffered from physical and emotional abuse your whole life. Yet you always pushed forward, made the choices that were best for you. And even this choice, I know, was what you believed was best for you. You made plans. You thought it out. You fought hard, and in the end, the choice to stop fighting was yours to make. You said in your letter to me that I was always there for you, so you knew you could have reached out to me in this dark moment, but you chose not to. You left that letter validating my importance in your life, and my value as a friend you could trust and turn to.

So now I’m validating you, even though it’s hard to do because I wish you were still here. I wish you hadn’t needed to fight so hard against so much suffering. But I will continue to be here for you now. I support you. I love you. I’m not mad at you. And if you being alive now meant that you had to continue to suffer, to carry so much unspeakable pain, then I support your choice to end the pain. You lived your life the way you wanted to. You accomplished so many things you set out to do. And in the end, you knew you were loved, cherished, and held dear. I can celebrate that.

I will still fight for a better world, one that might get even a little closer to deserving your light. I hope you’ll be with me through it, and help me. I hope I’ll see you again, and I hope that now you really can be at peace. I’m sending out all of my love to you, wherever you are. I’m holding you close. Just as you held me.