I’m not innocent in any of this. I’m scarred as much as you were. We went through the early years fighting to survive, you and I. My childhood left scars from food insecurity and transient homelessness. My family and I bounced from stranger’s basements to government housing to battered women’s shelters.

My mother, weighed down by her sins, fought for us, her children. She was gone before we woke up for school, back long after we had started dinner for ourselves. And yet, for the limited time she had, she bathed us in hugs and pleasant memories every second that she could spare. I have fond memories of warm, yellow rice filling my belly when the only thing left was rice, canned tomatoes, and salt. In spite of being victims of a system that stomps on your neck and refuses to let up, we made it to adulthood. I climbed my way out, just barely.

You had consistent meals and clean clothes, but were violated in ways that anyone, let alone a child, should ever have to face. You were let down by everybody that was supposed to love you. Based on your accounts and the tearful belated apologies from some of the adults in your life, your life was, quite simply, an adolescent hell. The assumption was you would end up in prison forever.

And yet you persisted, you climbed out of the mud, demons still clinging tightly to your back, and you surprised the world.

It’s no wonder we were drawn to the other. We both knew pain and trauma; we knew the coldness of the world at a time when many other children were safely tucked into soft beds.

Maybe that’s what we meant when we uttered our vows to each other. Forever and honor meant that we would make our own family, our own children, and we’d give them the safety and warmth and brilliance that had been severely lacking in ours. We’d heal through love, loving each other, loving our children.

But that’s not how it works. No one explained that healing is a process, a journey that’s personal. You can’t take someone else and fill the cracks in your own soul.

But we didn’t know.

And in the end, the demons crept back. They found you, they consumed you. And I lost you. And now I’m left missing you. Forever.

I feel like I failed you. I didn’t recognize the severity of what you were feeling because of what I was going through. The stigmas of mental health and the craziness of the life we were living kept us too close to the fire. We couldn’t tell the difference between light and flame, and the smoke ended up suffocating us.

I’m sorry I failed you.

I’m angry with the family that raised you. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at the things that were said, the things left unsaid. I’m angry we didn’t have a chance.

I’m angry that for the conservative opinions of yours that had you exercising your right to own a gun because though we practiced on the range, the only time it was ever used outside of practice was not for hunting or for defense…it was to stop the suffering. You ended your life in the pull of a trigger.