Note to self: VALUE PEOPLE

People need to know they are valued. Value the people in your life that you care about, and do it often. You never know who needs the reminder at that very moment.

Three weeks ago, someone very special to me attempted suicide. He swallowed all his sleeping pills and all his anxiety meds and went for a walk. His walk led him to my front step. I quickly realized he was fucked, so I called 911. The ambulance arrived minutes later. The paramedics strapped him to the stretcher, put him in the back of the ambulance, and intubated him right in front of me. It all happened so fast. They had to transfer him to the hospital so a doctor could pump his stomach. The driving paramedic rolled down his window as he pulled away and said, "Five more minutes... he'd be dead." 

He survived, thankfully. For the last three weeks, he has been a resident of the psychiatric ward at the hospital. He slept for 72 hours straight as the meds left his system. I did not visit him the first day he woke up. I thought I was partly to blame, and seeing me would make him worse. However, the next day, my phone was flooded with texts and calls from his family. He had been asking about me all day and wondered why I was not there. He was furious because I was not there. 

What I should have done from the beginning was be there. It was that simple. He was in crisis. He needed support. My role was simple... just be there.

These days, I do my best to help keep his spirits up, listen to him when he needs to talk, encourage him when he feels down, and let him know I am incredibly thankful he is still around and that if he had died, it would have devastated me.

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I often need reminders of the seemingly obvious things, and in case you are like me in that way, here you go:

People need to know they are valued. Value the people in your life that you care about, and do it often. You never know who needs the reminder at that very moment.