I didn’t know

This is not intended for anyone who can’t be compassionate toward a mother grieving her daughter’s suicide.

When Faerin died I began to unravel her secrets. The other suicide survivors call this a psychological autopsy, you dissect every part of their lives to try to understand, but you never really understand.

Some of her secrets were harder to process than others but I wanted to know them all. I wanted this stupid hole in my life to make sense. I wanted to know.

But I didn’t really know.

Heck, I didn’t even know that she had bought the gun until December. Up until then, I had no clue who it belonged to. The detective gave me the date in April when she bought it and I had stepped my self back in time to try and remember that day. Now my suspicions are confirmed and I still don’t know what the hell happened to my baby.

I know she was supposed to work that day but she called in. I know she bought the gun with some clever story of her daddy’s hunting cabin up north, blah, blah, blah.

I know she took a selfie in her car, I found that yesterday.

I know she left a maddeningly vague message in her voice recorder on her phone, I found that yesterday.

I know that she called me about an hour after she recorded the message and told me she wanted to die.

I didn’t know she had a shotgun loaded in her lap.

I didn’t know she’d taken a final selfie of her beautiful face without her usual mask over the obvious depression you can finally see there.

I didn’t know she’d gone so far.
I didn’t know she was standing on the ledge.
I didn’t even know she was sad until that night.

I bought her 36 days when I convinced her to come home.

When I thought a counselor could fix it. When I didn’t trust myself enough to grab her and hold on and never let go.

I didn’t know.

~*~
I have kind of an interesting puzzle now.

Oddly enough, Faerin got a new phone on April 3rd and it was damaged. I don’t want to think or ask about how. I was able to get a lot of the data off of it but I can’t use it or read her texts. I found the selfie and the note, but little else.

Her old phone is a temperamental old beast that is also happy to give up some of her secrets but not all of them. However, I can read her texts and (save one certifiably insane exception), it looks normal. A little sad but, she was missing some very important people in her life. There is no sign of a girl with an unusually depressing life on this phone unless you count the exception mentioned above.

She switched phones and 9 days later she bought a shotgun.

I can’t read those texts.
She changed the passwords on her accounts. Her old phone can no longer access them.

I can see the photos and videos she took. The music she was listening to. The message she left.
But not what went wrong. Why she thought she “kept fucking things up”. What kept making her so angry.
I have my suspicions but I can’t verify anything.

I don’t think I’m ready, I don’t know if I ever will be.
I didn’t know.

I still don’t know.