To be so close to the end, I cannot envy those who are there. I do not envy those who feel so desperate for help and support but so exhausted by being ignored. But I also do not pity those who are at the end either. Pity supports the feeling of hopelessness and regret. So instead I support those who need it. I am the pillar that my friends and people who I have never met lean on. I will even help then people who have hurt me before to lean on me. I can take it because I’m not at the end, but the ones that hurt others, are hurting more than they show. So I’ll help. I’ll talk to you and listen. I’ll understand and fight with you to recover. I’ll cry with you and laugh with you. I’ll be your friend, perhaps your only friend. 

But sometimes I’m too late. Sometimes the end is near and I cannot be there to stop it. My closest friend, someone I would never have guessed, was pushed to his limit. About to pull the trigger and snuff out his own life. But there is no time that it is acceptable to give up yon someone. Even with him hanging on by his last spider web thread, barely hanging on, I will reach out to him and fight until the end. 

And so I do. I built up his string. I talked to him. I laughed with him. Until slowly that barrel of the gun started to dip. And then shortly after, the gun slipped from his grip. The spider web became a string. And I know that the string will become a rope, and the rope a chain. 

I know this will not happen all at once and it will take time. So I hold him and wait. I lay against the wall hearing his ragged breathing against my chest. We sit and wait for help. We wait for his urge to go away. The urge to end it all.