Today I opened my personal email to find a People magazine story announcing that Kate Spade committed suicide. My immediate thought was “why would someone like Kate Spade want to kill herself?” For a regular, every day, not rich, not famous, not the creator of a multi-billion accessories line, person like me, it’s just hard to imagine making that decision.

I kept reading the article and was heartbroken to read that Ms. Spade has a 13-year-old daughter.

The same age as my oldest son.

“That poor girl”, I thought. Not just because her Mom committed suicide, but because she now will live a life similar to my sons…without a parent for the rest of her life.

I am always very, very candid in my blog, even if it invites controversy. So, I am going to say this out loud. I just don’t understand suicide. Even though I considered it years ago after my husband died. Even though I know widows who were widowed because their husbands took their own lives.

Chapter 2 and I got into a discussion about suicide after Robin Williams took his own life. Chapter 2’s argument was that mental illness is something other people cannot understand and that it can make people feel there is no other option. I know that Chapter 2 is right.  I can only imagine the pain that people who take their own lives must feel to make that choice.  My side of the argument was that I have seen, firsthand, the pain that death caused two young boys now left without a father. I know, firsthand, the pain that death causes a woman who loses her husband.

The part of suicide that I don’t understand is inflicting that kind of pain on the people left behind.

Shortly after I started my blog, a reader reached out to me and told me that they had been considering suicide and that reading my blog had helped them change their mind. I will never forget their words “I realized how much pain I would cause my family by reading your blog.”

Those words are among the most meaningful words that have ever been said to me. Those words changed my life. Those words propel me to keep writing in the hope that my blog will help just one more person.

What I love most about those words is that even though this person was very, very sad about life, they thought about their family. I did the same thing years ago when I was struggling so badly. I thought about my family. It was what made me dig down deep and crawl out of the hole into which I had fallen.

My plea to anyone considering suicide is to think about your family…and family does not always mean blood relatives. Even if you have a horrible family, there are probably other people in your life who love you and who would be thrown into a world of grief if you died.

Grief is really, really painful. It sucks the life out of you for a long time. It makes you sleepless for years. It is sometimes so bad you feel like you truly cannot breathe. It makes you dread things like holidays. It makes you stare into space for hours. It makes it hard to get out of bed. Even when grief seems like it’s starting to fade, it can come back and sabotage you at the most random times. Sadly, it never goes away completely.

So, I beg anyone who is contemplating taking their own life, to think beyond yourself. Think of your loved ones. Think of the pain that you will cause them, especially if you have young children. My sons would give up everything important to them to have their other parent here on Earth with them. Everything.

Life can be really, really hard.  I know that first hand. But I also truly believe that suicide is never the right answer. Dig deep. Crawl out.

Suicide prevention line: Call 1-800-273-8255