But in the last few years, I've experienced some very significant deaths that were so traumatizing that I've finally gained some of that perspective that had been elusive. Last year, we had two students commit suicide. Actually, one was a former student of mine who happened to have struggled with my own diagnosis of bipolar disorder. His death hit me hard as I so understood what his struggle entailed. This year our pastor's son died very suddenly from complications of the flu. He was my son's age and his death was shockingly sudden and devastating to his family, our church, his schoolmates, and the community. In all of these cases, I saw the grief and sorrow of those left behind and saw how these kids' lives had affected so many others.

My biggest lesson in this outside perspective came two years ago when my sister died. The pain and grief was (and really still is) overwhelming at times. We knew she was probably going to die. She had been through cancer and a difficult bone marrow transplant. We had been watching her waste away for months, but even with advanced notice and natural causes, her death devastated us all. I vividly remember saying to myself that week she died that I would never deliberately put my family through such pain by deliberately causing my own death. I made a decision at that point that suicide would not be my way out of this world; I won't do that to my family, my friends, my students.