Cycles, Silence, and Starting Again.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a girl named Esmeralda. She was as beautiful as a dawn that promises rain: startling and soft at once. Her hair was as dark as coal, and everyone who met her loved her—her parents adored her, and the people of her hometown treasured her wit, her laughter, and the strange, quiet wisdom she seemed to carry like a lantern. Esmeralda had seen things no one else around her had: not just the places she’d visited, but small, private truths that shaped how she moved through the world.

Esmeralda took time off work and decided to travel the world. In Edinburgh, she climbed Arthur’s Seat at dawn and watched the city wake beneath a shawl of mist. She wandered the Royal Mile’s cobbled paths, listened to stories of old stone and ghosts, and stood beneath the austere silhouette of Edinburgh Castle as gulls cried overhead. Lantern-lit closes, street pipers, and the sudden bloom of a city festival taught her how history smelled and sounded. From there she went deep into the Amazon: nights full of chorus frogs and distant insect choirs, sunlight pouring through cathedral-high canopy, rivers braided with secrets. She lost herself in New York’s electric surge—neon, subway rhythms, a skyline that kept rising even after you’d stopped looking. In South Africa, she rode long coastal roads, tasting dust, ocean, and warmth, and in Kenya, she hiked Mount Kenya, taking every photograph to try to capture the way altitude changed the light on a person’s face.

Esmeralda owned her own company and took photographs from every continent she touched. Still, despite the galleries and the love letters and the sunsets she’d tattooed on film, something patient and hollow lived under her ribs. Wherever she went, a small, wordless absence followed—she could not name it, no matter how many stamps she added to her passport.

On her travels, she also found big love—the kind that arrives like a scene in a movie, like a revelation. She had “pinch me” moments: quiet dinners, the small, ridiculous ways someone learns your coffee order and remembers it, laughter in empty plazas. She often wondered what she had done to deserve such tenderness. Yet the emptiness never left.

Then the pandemic arrived. Borders closed, flights stopped, everything that kept her heart buoyed—family visits, townspeople’s faces, the man she loved—was suspended. The silence lengthened. With each locked door, each cancelled plan, loneliness settled deeper. Panic attacks came like weather fronts: sudden, bright, terrifying. Company profits fell. The emptiness began to feel like a failure Esmeralda had caused. Shame threaded through her days; she stopped answering calls, became irritable, and the light in her eyes dimmed. She found herself thinking about the unthinkable—imagining a world without herself and rehearsing the ways there would be no one to miss her. The thoughts scared her more than anything.

But one day everything changed. While moving a box of old papers she had meant to keep “someday,” Esmeralda found a small book she had written to her younger self. Esmeralda turned the pages slowly, as if each word might be fragile. The letters she’d written to her younger self were softer than she remembered—fewer demands, more invitations: to be kind to herself, to forgive small mistakes, to keep photographing light even when the world felt dim. Toward the back someone—she—had scribbled a single line in a different ink: “You do not have to fix everything today. Begin with one bright thing.”

As dawn pooled at the window, she realized the emptiness she’d carried wasn’t a defect but an unlocked room asking for gentle furnishing. It did not vanish at once—grief and fear were stubborn—but the sentence in that little book was a map: small, sensible steps back toward living. She called her sister. She opened the company books with a clearer plan. She made a photograph she didn’t try to sell, just to prove the light was still there. Hope did not feel like fireworks; it felt like a finger finding the seam of a blanket and drawing it over her shoulders. It was enough.

September is Suicide Prevention Month. I am typing this at 2:15 a.m.; I know I should be asleep, but words keep me awake when they need to be said. Who am I lying to? It is anxiety—oh, how I hate this feeling—but we move.

 Statistics from the WHO estimate Kenya’s crude suicide rate at 6.1 per 100,000 population, and an age-standardized rate of 11.0 per 100,000—roughly translating to about four suicide deaths per day. I won’t pretend to know everything about suicide, but I do know that many of us, at one time or another, imagine not being in this world—because we feel the world is against us, because our parents don’t understand, because we feel alone, because of work, relationships, school, or money. Sometimes we picture a world better off without us. If you haven’t experienced that, I pray you never will.

Personally, I have thought about it—not ending my life, well, maybe a little bit last year—but I have thought about what would happen if I do. I am extremely afraid to die, yet I know I have suicidal tendencies: walking in between cars, walking in the middle of the road while I am going to church with my earphones on, and so many things I just realized I do. So when I was thinking about what happens, I thought about what comes next: my phone ringing because my best friends don't believe it; my mum and dad being told or finding me; my grandma crying; my brother and my sister being left without their middle sibling; my cousins without a friend; and a lot of people wondering, na kwani nini ilifanyika? na kwani huko kwao? na kwani wazazi? As you can tell, that image—people’s opinions—is not something I would ever want anyone I love to experience.

One thing I hate is how shameful suicide feels for those who die and for those left behind. The darkness—anxiety, withdrawal, irritability, desire not to be here—is not shameful. Most of us don’t have all the people or the knowledge we need. Therapy costs money. Families and friends sometimes lack mental-health literacy. Stigma tells us it's a weakness to struggle. And often, the burden becomes too heavy.

People our age feel enormous pressure: Am I where I’m supposed to be? Do I have a job? Do my friendships matter? What does social media say I should have by thirty, twenty-five, forty—a car, land, a partner? We forget that life’s race doesn’t have a single finish line. Maybe you woke up one day unsure of what you offer the world. Your journey might be slow or fast, long or short—what matters is what you do with it. You owe no one an explanation. If your road is hard, it can get easier—not necessarily smooth, but more bearable. If your route is easier, please lend a hand to someone who is stumbling.

If you have thought about suicide, you are not alone. Recognize, respond, refer. Recognize that you are not okay. Respond: tell a trusted friend, reach out to family, see a professional. Refer: connect with crisis services or a clinician who can help. Push yourself to do small grounding things even when your energy is at -50. Little steps add up.

The most common factors that stop many of us from attempting suicide are the “4 F’s”: faith, family, future hope, and fear of failing in the attempt. I want to dive into faith—not to judge anyone. I have no right to judge. I only want to encourage you to pray and read the Bible without giving up. I know there are times God seems silent, but He is still listening; keep going until you hear His voice, and when the noise fades, may He meet you right where you are.

There’s a song by Jonathan McReynolds called “Cycle,” and there’s a line that warns how the devil learns from our mistakes even when we don’t. Don’t let him learn from your mistakes. He feeds on negative self-talk, self-sabotage, and feelings of unworthiness, and uses them to fuel the wrong ideas. I am not saying suicide is caused by a lack of faith—absolutely not. I recognize that people who are deeply on their knees before God still feel this pain and may not know how to navigate it. I am saying: involve Him also.

When you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel, look for the light at the beginning of the day. Start with believing in yourself; sometimes that small act is what lets the rest fall into place.

To survivors: you are warriors. Do not let anyone shame you for surviving. To those thinking the world would be better off without them: YOU ABSOLUTELY MATTER. To those with tendencies: please stop tempting fate—she is not kind. To those we have lost to suicide: may you find peace, and may those who loved you find comfort. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; and let your perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.