I was in my office kitchen cutting fruit yesterday when a colleague walked up to me to express her condolences about my brother. She was on the limited e-mail list I sent out to colleagues, letting them know I was participating in the Queens AFSP Out of the Darkness walk this year, and requesting a donation if they wanted to contribute. She told me that she admired my courage in sharing and discussing something so hard so openly, and she found my story very well written and heart felt.

She also told me that her best friend from college had a brother who also committed suicide. It happened when they were in college. She’s in her thirties now, and she said that to this day, her friend won’t admit to anyone that the cause of her brother’s death was suicide, and she refuses to discuss it openly with anyone — even her, and they are best friends. How did you know it was suicide? I asked her. Apparently, they found her brother and were there when the EMT came and pronounced it self-inflicted. She said it was obvious from the scene that it was suicide.

“That’s why I think it’s great what you are doing,” my colleague said to me. “It’s amazing that you can be so open about it because I really think it will help other people be more open to talking about something so sensitive.”

That’s easier said than done. Every time I get another donation notification, I feel all at once this overwhelming sensation of gratitude, and simultaneously a sense of misery that my own brother is dead as a result of his own doing.