EVERY STORY WORTH TELLING BEGINS LIKE THIS: I WOKE up thinking my life was the same as it always had been, and then it wasn’t.
For some people, the change comes in the form of bad news: a car accident, or an illness diagnosed, or a secret revealed. For others—for the lucky ones—it’s a good-news kind of change: a winning lottery ticket, a large inheritance, the news that the Home Shopping Network just bought a million units of your latest invention, and you’re set for life. Not that good news necessarily means more money, but those are the first examples to spring to mind.
My point is, that’s how this story begins, too: I woke up thinking my life was the same as it always had been. And then it wasn’t.
My sister died.
She died by suicide, and she didn’t leave a note to explain why. Just a list, written on a sheet torn from a spiral notebook, folded over five times, tucked into the front pocket of her jeans.
I woke up thinking my life was the same as it always had been, and then it wasn’t, and I didn’t know why. But the list was where I’d start.