This week has been pretty miserable emotionally. I’m sure it’s a combination of a lot of things – Daylight Savings Time and the pitch black sky when I leave the office for the day, the colder temperatures, the fact that I know that Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and they will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmases that Ed will not be able to see. I used to think that maybe this year or the following, I’d go home for Thanksgiving or buy Ed a plane ticket to come to where I was so that we could have Thanksgiving together as family. I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving since my senior year of high school in 2003. None of those potential plans will ever have the chance of happening again.

But then I remember how miserable last Thanksgiving and Christmas were for Ed because I wasn’t home for either holiday, and none of my cousins or aunt or uncle acknowledged him or came home to see him. Actually, no one even called him or sent him a gift for Christmas except me. I was in Australia and still made sure to call him on his Christmas day.

The world isn’t a better place without Ed, but somehow, I have a feeling he is probably in a better place for himself because this world was never kind or good enough to him. Maybe once, I can appreciate someone’s selfishness to end his life, as some people would call it. But it’s sad when even your family fails you.