Today, I’m very sad. I just found out that a wonderful person that I talk about in my book Pain, Passion & Purpose has died. I’m still awaiting details but I suspect that it was a suicide.

I met David online when someone referred him to me for writing advice. What I found was a powerful storyteller – a person who had lived an amazing life – full of dramatic highs and lows.  I couldn’t see that he needed any advice on writing but what I could see was that he needed a friend.  He had been fighting a life-long battle with depression and had already made suicide attempts in the past.  Yet, in the good moments, this was a person of exceptional clarity, wit and charm.  He loved to mountain climb and sail, and all of the hard challenges in his life had made him a deep and thoughtful thinker, contemplating the nature of life and God.

In many ways, he was more “alive” than anyone I know.  I suppose it’s because he “felt” everything.  There was nothing numb about David.  I admired that and sort of wished that I could live with the sense of abandon and freedom that he did.  But of course, the other side of that coin is the lows. Not all feelings are good – and at times a suffocating heaviness would creep up on him and cast a shadow on his amazing shining Spirit.

When we first met, I was writing a book about pain and the purpose it serves in our lives – so I asked him if I might share some of his journey.  He enthusiastically agreed saying that he wanted to make it all count for something and “help people.”

With such a sense of poise, depth and intelligence, I suppose I naively believed that David would find his way out of the darkened spiral within which he found himself.  But it appears that he didn’t.  I regret that he never got to see the book – to see how his example might just serve as a saving grace for someone else – but I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be.

He was a person with much to say – and a life story to rival any major motion picture.  In the sources section of my book, I provide a link to David’s personal blog where he routinely laid out the raw and real details of his life and struggles.  And in it you’ll also find the most divinely inspiring glimpses of hope – of someone walking so close to the other side that he sometimes just wasn’t sure which one to call home.

Although I didn’t know you long, David – I honor the life you lived and will continue to use your life as an inspiration for others.  I only wish I could have helped to ease your own personal pain.  One thing we shared in common was awe for the miraculous nature of life and the fact that we could feel something very powerful and mysterious at work behind the scenes.  I find comfort in the thought than perhaps now you can see beyond the veil and are reunited with that loving and peaceful energy.  Blessings my friend – I’m so glad that I got to know you – if even for a short while.

Marci Wise is the author of Pain, Passion & Purpose. Copyright © 2013 marciwise.com. Material is copyrighted but free to repost as long as proper credit is listed, including our website address.