When A Life Is Wasted

Clearing my Blackberry on the way into work. Head spinning with everything that needed to get done today. Wishing the traffic would move faster. That the rain would stop. That this week would be over and I could crawl into bed and snuggle up to my husband and not worry about what crisis might need to be handled tomorrow.

News items deleting. My insurance company might go bust from the Christchurch Earthquake. Do we stick it out with them or switch insurers now? We have no food in our house. I still haven't got my Dad a birthday present. Why does having a baby sound like a holiday right now?

Then I opened up the next email. It took me a few seconds to comprehend what I was reading. A friend had died. Not a close friend, but someone more than an acquaintance. The girl who I first met six years ago who was bubbly and talented and full of life, had let anorexia get a hold of her and it has now cost her everything.

I still can't process it. I'm angry. Angry at such a needless waste of life. Angry at those closest to her for not forcing her to get help before it got to this. Angry at her for steadfastly refusing to admit that she had a problem - right to the end. Angry at myself for avoiding her the last time I saw her at church because I didn't have the energy to try and hold a "normal" conversation with her, reinforcing her in her denial by being too awkward, too "it's not my place" to initiate the hard conversation. I knew that many people closer to her than I had tried, and failed to get her to see what she was doing to herself. 

 

I walked away that day and decided it was enough, that the next time I saw her I would have that conversation.  That continuing to pretend that she wasn't now dying, as opposed to just sick and needing help, when she looked like one of those photos that were taken of the people found in Auschwitz, was over.

I never saw her again. Will never see her again.

It's too late for Michelle. But I beg you, if you know anyone, if you ever know anyone who has let a diet turn dangerous, please do something, say something. No matter how awkward or inconvenient. If for no other reason, then you'll never have to be like Michelle's family, flatmates, friends and acquaintances who are all asking ourselves if maybe, combined, we'd all tried a little bit harder, she'd still be alive today.