I was 18-years-old when one of my fondest friends committed suicide. The day she died it was like a massive bomb exploded. Except bombs are not nearly so precise. Anyone who loved her was targeted with surgical precision, receiving pain and trauma in return for their affection. Even writing about it now, eight years later, the anger that roared to life inside of me that day still has some embers flickering. But in those eight years there's also been healing and there's also been learning. I've spent a lot of time trying to understand depression, trying to understand the impact her death had on me. Learning to empathize with her struggle is the most important lesson I've had to learn. It was hard and it was painful until the day when everything I felt for her, good and bad, came crashing together, and I had to decide what meaning I would take from the worst day of my life.