Loss.

This here is Juan.

I had a total crush on him back in the day.

He was sweet to me. Kind, handsome and well... just sweet... and he was sweet on me. :)... he really just made me feel like someone out there cared about me.

One day back in -- gawd, I have no idea -- maybe 1991 or 1992, we were supposed to go out one night but the asshole boyfriend I was with at the time was finally going to not be out w/ his mistress, so I didn't go out with Juan that night.

That night Juan played a game of Russian Roulette.

He didn't win.

He was brain dead for about 1/2 a day before his body finally realized he was already gone.

I. Was. Devastated.

At the funeral one of his friends was blasting that song, Hard to Say Goodbye by Boyz II Men. That song will forever make me sad.

I worked with Juan's step-father at McDonald's back then and he cried in my arms at his funeral. It was the first time I'd ever seen a grown man cry. Not just tears but the kind of heart-wrenching guttural sobbing the shreds your heart to witness.

I remember the sadness I felt that day. I remember it well.

We were both just teenagers and he was taken from me for no good reason.

The other day one of my son, Jeremíe's, friends committed suicide.

She was just 17.

She was also bisexual. Gay youth are 4x's more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts (source). FOUR TIMES.

Though known to be clinically depressed this girl, from the outside looking in, seemed to have everything. She had a ton of friends. No enemies, smart, beautiful and kind.

She slit her wrists the last day of her junior year of high school and left behind a ripple effect of sorrow and pain.

Every time I think of how devastated I would be if one of my children decided that was their only option, my heart shatters.

I can't imagine how her parents feel.

Jeremíe told me how much sadness he feels because he didn't recognize her pain in time to help her. He is now on a mission to talk to youth about NOT committing suicide and getting help before it's too late. I'm so proud of him.

I am so happy that Jess wants to someday foster the LGBT youth to try to keep one more needless death from happening. Maybe we can make a small difference.

Her final facebook post was "5 exams... ewww."

Before that, "I can't sleep... I can't eat... what's wrong with me?"

The signs were there -- but now it's too late to interpret them.

I can't express to you the hurt and sorrow I feel for this girl I didn't even know.

You poor, poor child... I wish you had known that this too would have passed. This life would have changed. Your sorrow would have lifted. Your life would have brightened. It's never the end of your rope.

We have all been there.

We have all felt that despair.

That loneliness.

That feeling that no one loves us and that we'd rather be dead than to live another minute.

I wish I could have told you about our youth group at the center so you could've found like-minded teens to help you through your pain.

I wish.

Yet my wishing will not return your beauty to this earth.

It is gone from us.

Like so many millions of others who issued a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

My heart aches for your family and your friends who are left behind to pick up the pieces and wonder what they did wrong.

For your younger sister who found you lifeless and covered in blood.

For you in those last seconds when life began to drift away from you and the darkness set in.

My heart. Simply. Aches.