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You Never Really Know

You see someone walk down the street
A blank expression on their face.
You get a little closer,
Simply curious of whom it is.
You smile and ask them how they have been,
Hoping that it meant something to them.
How do you know?
Then later you get a phone call,
Your mother’s voice on the other end.
Just a few sobs and a sniffle
Was all that it took.
Who was it this time?
You wait for the sobs to die down
And then you ask her what is wrong.
“Your cousin jumped off the bridge this morning.
It took his life from him.”
The words take a bit to sink in
And then you start thinking back
To when the last time you talked to him actually was.
It makes you think about life,
How quickly things go by.
The last time that I saw his face
Was when my great-grandmother died.
Just last year
His son drowned in the river
Only a few days after I saw him.
So now he leaves behind another son
And two daughters,
One of them pregnant.
He never got to see his grandchild.
Yet only one question is in my head…
“What was so wrong in his life
That he decided it was not worth it anymore?”
Maybe if just one person had asked him how he was,
Things would have been different.