She Died of Depression

When I think of depression I think of an "ugly" disease. I'm not sure what I think is a pretty disease. Depression is still an illness people don't want to talk about. It carries a stigma with it. Too many people still believe the depressed person needs to just "snap out of it." As if. Cancer saps the life-force out of person's body; depression saps it from the very soul.
A friend of mine died of depression last week. IT is still hard for me to write about it, but so many thoughts about it have been whirling around in my mind, I think if I write about it, they may be quieted.
How does one die of depression? It is often called suicide.
If you knew my friend before she was ravaged by depression, you would never, ever believe she would take her own life. She embodied the notion of letting the Holy Spirit fill her. She was extremely kind. Being less than kind on many occassions, and having to work hard at being kind in others, when I first met "Jane" I didn't think she could be genuine. How can someone not complain, or whine, or find fault with some of the real doobers we meet? But as you got to know her, you knew...she was one of the people you say has a kind heart. I know I never heard her say a bad word about someone else. Never. Reading the messages left on the online guestbook, that sentiment was reiterated over and over. She was at peace with her life and her God. I knew Jane through Engaged Encounter. People you know through something like Engaged Encounter are in a group of special friends. You may not spend a lot of time with them, but having spent a weekend retreat with them, you know things about them on a very deep level and they know the same about you. There is a bond there that is very powerful. I hadn't seen Jane for over a year, and didn't know she was suffering from depression...it was never put out on our prayer chain...because of the stigma of depression. Speaking with her husband after the funeral, he said he had lost Jane long before this...depression had taken away the spark in her that was so key to who she was.
He was devasted, especially because they (doctors and family) thought she was turning a corner in recovery. Depression robs you of your 'will to do,' slowly draining all desire and hope. It is a mental paralysis, making any activity a monumental task. There are a number of anti-depresant medicines that come with a warning, that suicidal tendencies increase at the beginning of taking them. It has been speculated that the medicine removes enough of the mental paralysis that suicide seems viable to the patient because the paralysis leaves faster than the hope returns.
Jane and her husband were extremely active in Engaged Encounter. They held numerous local and district leadership positions. They travelled to most conventions. They touched thousands of lives. The world has truly lost a light, an angel.
The funeral was beautiful. 5 priests concelebrated. All knew her personally, all were crushed at how her illness progressed to this point.
I cannot say that all who commit suicide are clinically depressed, but I do know that just like some cancer patients die of some infection or other complication, and we still say they died of cancer, a depressed person who dies of suicide, really died of depression. And just as family and friends are not responsible for cancer taking their loved-one's life, they are not responsible for the effects of depression either.