This I Believe - 2014

Wednesday, January 1, 2014
I believe in agency.

In July of last year, my husband and I were subjected to every parent's nightmare. Our local police department came to our home to tell us that our daughter was dead, having taken her own life the night before.

The next several months are a blur of misery and grief. Every day was like a punch in the gut, waking up to realize my baby girl was gone, having died alone and filled with despair. For as long as I live, I will never understand her choice.

I wish a lot of things about events surrounding my daughter's death. I wish she hadn't felt so alone. I wish she would have told someone - anyone - about how she was feeling. I wish the medical care she was receiving had been more effective in treating her depression. I wish I had kept closer tabs on her after she'd moved out of our house. Above all, I wish I could have helped her find her way into the light.

But what I don't wish is that she lacked agency in making her decision. 

Agency is a person's capacity to act in the world. People who have agency make their own decisions, and move through their lives choosing their paths as they will, not without outside influence, but without outside compulsion.

People have a right to make their own decisions. They have the right to determine their life's course without being compelled to make the decisions that others want them to make. I believe this to be true, and even though this belief has led me to the greatest tragedy of my life, even though my daughter's agency led to her death and broke my heart, I cannot change this fundamental belief just because the people I love don't choose as I would wish. Forsaking this belief is to force tyranny on others, or worse.

Agency is what makes us human and allows us to craft our own destinies. This power is an enormous gift, and a tremendous burden. I cannot wish it otherwise, even in my life's worst hour.

This I believe.

2 comments:

Laur said...

Thank you Janiece for sharing these achingly beautiful thoughts and words, all powerful, and true.

Phiala said...

This is so true, and so important, and so hard to live with.