she did not die on the first attempt. The starving herself one wasn't very well-planned in retrospect, because she got really hungry, and she had access to food and everything. To be honest, we didn't really expect anything else from that attempt. It was still rough regardless, because of course it isn't fun to have someone you know and are relatively close with sending you daily Whatsapp-updates on how her suicide attempt is going. Also because my mom and I were on holiday at the time (during which we were also going to a good family friend's funeral, so it already wasn't too cheerful to begin with). Anyways, my mom sent her updates back about, like, holiday stuff and that we were drinking free unlimited lemonades at a bar and my aunt got so thirsty she broke her suicide-fast and then just kind of gave up on it. Of course, with a subtle hint that her failed attempt was my mom's fault. You know, because of the pictures of lemonade.

Time passed. I didn't speak to her for a while, I think a little over a year? A thing I really struggled with was how she kept joking about her suicide before doing it. I think I've mentioned this before, but she loved joking about how future things that were going to bother us (my mom, me, my grandma (RIP), my aunt's sister, etc) were never going to bother her because, you see, she was going to commit suicide, so she wasn't going to have to struggle with anything anymore, soon. She talked a lot about how staying alive was inherently selfish, how prolonging your life made you a bad person. The best thing you as a human being could do, she said, was die, because of overpopulation and whatnot. That's why she thought that her sister (who had cancer at the time) should just stop taking chemo and die. You know, despite the fact she had two sons she needed to take care of. My aunt has never been one to care too much about others, or other people's feelings. When we were upset at her dying (and especially, the drawn-out road to her suicide, a road paved with inappropriate jokes about how happy she was that she was about to die), or if we said we would miss her, she'd just sort of shrug. She didn't really care, had already made up her mind, et cetera. Her attitude being like this kind of soured me on her entirely for a while and so we didn't speak much until we reconnected at my mom's best friend's funeral, someone we both knew pretty well too.

I wrote something about her in short-form which, in retrospect, makes me cringe at myself a bit. But at the time it felt true. it's been so long, yet my head still fits perfectly in the spot between her neck and shoulder, and our arms hook together effortlessly. Of course I had missed her. It had all been complicated and weird but she was one of the people who took care of me the most when I was a child, along with my grandma. Of course I love her. She frustrates me to no end, but I love her. I love her.

For a while life went on as normal. This was after my grandma's death, so I was dealing with quite a big gap in my life. Suddenly, that place I went to after work, and on my days off, where I slept over at least once a week, was just gone. No more grandma I could tell everything, no more best friend to go on walks with in the afternoon and eat ice cream with for dessert. My aunt and I used to go to the cinema together a lot, but she had never gotten a new cinema card after she had gotten rid of her old one before her attempt. I spent a lot of days alone roaming the streets and reading on benches, stuff like that. I saw my aunt a lot less. We went out together sometimes, but most of the times I saw her were when we'd have tea together alongside my mom, on the weekends, just for them to catch up. I'd bring something to do, like a sketchbook or something, and listen along but not add much myself. It wasn't pleasant nor unpleasant, it was just one of those things that happened. Part of the routine.

Then, my aunt set a new suicide date. In December 2025 she found out her cancer was back (something she was happy about when she first got it, because, if she left it untreated, she could finally reach her life goal of dying). She didn't want to prolong her suffering and slowly die of cancer, so she decided that in May 2026 she was going to overdose on pills. By this time we had sort of gotten used to this, to hearing that she would kill herself somewhere in the future, but not yet. Choosing an oddly specific date and then proceeding to barely plan the affair. She hadn't even googled if the pills she was planning on overdosing on were the type you could easily overdose on. Weirdly fixated on getting anti-puking medication, she was, to the point that she actually went to my other aunt (mom's sister, the one I've been talking about is my mom's cousin) to ask her (my other aunt) to lie to her (other aunt's) doctor that she was constantly puking so they would give her perscription anti-vomit medication other aunt could in turn give to the first aunt. My other aunt, being a pushover, actually did this (her doctor probably believed her because she's really thin so people would believe her if she said she was vomiting etc, that's why she had to do it).

May came and went. My aunt's mom was close to dying so she postponed her attempt so her sister wouldn't have to clean out two dead people's houses in a short period of time. She set another date, then postponed it, then put it back earlier, postponed it again, etc etc this happened a few times until she set her sights on September 10th. We had a goodbye dinner with her, we got Hotpot and as a goodbye gift she gave me a tiny soap dish shaped like a fish. Because I had mentioned I would want a sea-themed bathroom in my house whenever I moved out. I guess she did listen to me at some point. During dinner, she asked for suicide advice. Casually chatted, joked about it. Mentioned that if she didn't die from the pills she would slit her throat with a box cutter. Laughed her ass off, miming the movement of cutting her neck over and over, making a slashing noise with her mouth. Since then I've seen it before my eyes hundreds of times, every time I close my eyes, visions of her throat being slit, of blood pouring out.

Then, she changed the date from September 10th to September 7th, something to do with how it's cheaper to get cremated on a weekday, or something. She begged to see us on friday evening, we met her at a cafe and talked about nothing in particular. She wanted to see us on Saturday, we went for lunch together and had regular small-talk. On Sunday, we sat in her garden and she took a hit off my vape after which she exageratedly coughed for like 30 seconds straight. Monday was the 7th. Yesterday. At around 5 PM she texted my mom, said she was going to shower and then do it. She hasn't been online on Whatsapp since 5:15 PM yesterday.

The plan is, today we do nothing, tommorrow we do nothing. Assuming we do not get a sign of life before then, the plan is that on Thursday my mom and my aunt's sister (who is also my mom's cousin, I guess. They're just not as close so it doesn't really feel that way) are going over there to check if she's alive or dead, and then they'll call the police. Then, if she's dead, she'll be cremated by whatever service is cheapest. She left us money so we can travel to Canada and spread her ashes on a hiking trail she loved. Not enough money, not even enough for one plane ticket, but it's the thought that counts, I suppose.

I haven't been able to sleep. I'm not entirely sure what I'm afraid of, but I keep finding myself sitting on my bedroom floor, rocking back and forth with my hands covering my eyes. I'm equally afraid of hearing something from her as I am of not hearing something from her. I'm afraid of the horrifying thing my mom will have to do, potentially seeing my aunt's dead body in an unknown state after having taken copious amounts of pills (her antidepressants). We won't know until Thursday, and then we will know, and that's probably even worse. Almost everyone we know has died in the past few years. We went from a full dinner table at my grandma's house to just me, my mom and my aunt. My mom's best friend died, my mom's best male friend died, my great-aunt's soulmate (the kindest man you could ever meet) died, suddenly. My grandma's two remaining sisters died relatively shortly after each other as well. I don't want to seem too overly sorry for myself but we... didn't want her, or anyone else to die. It's hard to feel this way when partially it's also someone's own choice. I mean, she's been talking about it for years, so we know she's serious about it. I overheard a conversation between my mom and her cousin, and something her cousin said stuck out to me in particular. "She's been waiting to die since she was a kid," she said. We know it's what she wanted. It would have been messed up to try and stop her. But on the other hand, we wanted to stop her. I don't know how to feel. I just don't know.

She likes Nick Cave and David Bowie. She likes Rupaul's Drag Race and watching videos about BTS on Youtube (she doesn't actually like their music, just the videos of them interacting). She likes old children's books. She loves the sun but hates the heat. She used to be a babysitter. She hears voices. She's a stoner. She likes any liquor that tastes like coffee. She likes going to the cinema. She's forgetful. She's weird and funny and impressionable. I don't want her to die. But maybe that's selfish of me. I feel nauseous just typing this. I don't want her to die. I don't want her to die.

I guess we'll see what happens.

← →