Three long years have passed since I got the news that my dear youngest daughter, Jessica, my little Jessie Bear, was found dead at the age of 25, apparently having slipped away in her sleep after taking Oxymorphone without knowing that she was suffering from bacterial pneumonia. Her breathing slowed because of the drug, and, I assume, her lungs filled with liquid due to the pneumonia, and she simply stopped breathing. Certainly a peaceful way to go if that is your intention, not so, if totally accidental. And certainly not for those left behind who loved her dearly and now must face each day knowing they’ll not see her sweet face or hear her snorky laughter again this side of eternity, if such a thing exists.

When I was 20 and living alone in Ireland, I was told by an Irish friend who had received a phone call from my family (I had no phone of my own) that my elderly father had passed away. He was 79, and I had grown up being told that I better appreciate my father because I wouldn’t have him long. In my childhood home our bedrooms were attached, and I would lay awake in my bed listening for the sound of my father breathing to assure myself that he was still alive. Of course, I was totally unprepared for the news and had to grieve on my own in a foreign country. My mother told me not to bother coming home as my father had already been cremated, and there would be no ceremony. Mine was certainly an unloving and dysfunctional family. Still, I loved my father dearly even knowing that I wasn’t his favorite, that prize belonging to my older sister who suffered from a major illness for all her teenage years. Although I had virtually lost most all of my aunts and uncles and some younger relatives by the time of my father’s death, I still knew nothing about the art of grieving, so I stumbled along in a daze, stupor, or nightmare, shocked and unbelieving that I would never see my father or hear his voice again. Strangely, within a day or so of hearing of his death, I received the last letter he had written me imploring me to someday go back to college, but assuring me that he understood my desire to escape and see the world, that, he too, had desired such adventure at my age.

The simple truth is it took me three long, painful years until I was able to speak or think of my dad without crying. My heart was simply gripped with pain and loss, and I couldn’t imagine ever feeling joy again. But I was young, and so much of life was still ahead of me, and besides, as horrible as it was, there was also a sort of rightness to the timing of his death. I had outlived him, which is the way things are supposed to be. It wasn’t my fault I was born so late in his life. It was simply the fact that I wasn’t likely to have my father with me for long. I’d always known that, and when I first heard the words, “Your father has died,” I thought, “Now the worst has happened, and I’m still here. I’ve survived.”

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But here I am, Nov. 10, 2016, three years after my daughter’s wrongful death and two days after Trump’s election, and honestly, more than anything, I just don’t think I have it in me to go on. I don’t have the strength to fight the good fight, to put my chin up, and keep walking forward. For me, life is so very difficult on the best of days that the thought of watching my country destroyed, which I believe will happen, seeing the slow destruction, day-by-day, of people’s hard-won rights and the few protections we’ve put in place to save the planet, to watch a narcissistic madman embarrass all of us before the world and potentially wage war because of his out of control ego, while inside I yearn with all my heart to see my daughter again, I just don’t have the strength to continue.

I am not suicidal, don’t get me wrong. I have another brilliantly wonderful daughter whom I wouldn’t hurt by taking my life, and a loving, loyal, supportive husband who has stood by me despite my many encouragements to go find a happy life without me. But in my tired, weaker moments I just wish I could be in the wrong place at the right time, that my life could be sacrificed so that some other young daughter or son could live a full, long life. I know there are many who would scold me if they read these words, but they can’t know the pain I live with daily. There are others who live with much worse pain and do it gracefully. More power to them. I’m not as strong as everyone keeps telling me I am. I’m tired. Bone deep, foot dragging, out of breath exhausted. And I am sad and soul-destroyed. I’m told if I can make it to five years after the death, life starts again slowly. I just don’t think I have it in me. I long for dissolution and a return to my brothers and sisters in the elements. I long for mindlessness and a cessation of feeling. I long for total darkness and silence and above all peace. I long to join my Jessie Bear somewhere in the ether and hold her in my arms forever.