A letter to Mindy McCready

Dear Mindy,

       I was surprised that morning of February 18, 2013, when I was looking through Youtube videos to find out about your suicide. Overwhelmed, really, not to mention you were not all that far from where I live.  Your tragedy was the first time I had ever cried over anyone's death, and this was just a month after losing my grandfather.  You have been through so much hell, like the physical abuse in one of your relationships, the legal issues you've had, in particular the custody battles, and David killing himself.  I can't say I would not have done the same thing.  I also think back to the end of 2009/beginning of 2010, when things seemed like they were looking up.  I had discovered a song you had released, "I'm Still Here," plus an unreleased one about the abuse you went through; "Black and Blue."  It motivated me to log onto Facebook and see if there was a slight chance I could contact you, reach out to you.  I understood that there were probably many fake accounts, and I may have had no way of knowing which one was the real you.  With that in mind, I also knew that I was more likely to not get a reply.  But I didn't care.  Like you, many times I have attempted suicide, and have dealt with a lot of trouble.  I think about your custody battles.  My family has dealt with many of those.  My mom has been schizophrenic for 15 years now, and has given birth to seven kids since.  All are in foster care, and whether or not I'll ever see them is beyond me.  I know you've been a few treatment facilities over the years.  My mom and I have as well.  But I don't know, it's hard not to question the way things are ran.  From the time I've spent in a couple of those kinds of places during my teen years, it's like all they do is preach cliches and give you drugs that just give you a bunch of unwanted side effects.  They have never helped my mom out any, and with her condition, she's not going to admit anything is wrong with her, which is what is apparently expected.  Nonetheless, despite the roller coaster of a relationship the mental illness has caused, the more time goes by, the more I respect and care about my mom.  She can be hostile at times, yes, but people have also gone too far in treating her like crap.  As far as I know, if that kind of thing continues, a person can never get better.

     I would be lying if I said I knew exactly what you were going through, even if it was for the sake of being a friend.  You've lived longer than I have, and dealt with a bunch of things I've had the fortune of not dealing with.  With being famous comes a lot of income, but how you had lived with so many news stories and tabloids being written about you, and so many on the internet potentially calling you every name in the book  is an enigma to me.  I probably would have done whatever I could to get out of site, maybe even hide in a cave.  I'd also be dishonest or at least uncertain with myself if I was going around saying "Mindy is one of 10,000 angels in Heaven now."  Truth be known, I've never been dead before, so I can't say what's going on for you right now.  As an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife.  But honestly, I'd rather just be plain dead than to deal with the possibility of being tortured for eternity.  I know there are many who would run away with that and make up lies, but whether or not I want something to happen doesn't make it real or imaginary.  I think about death a lot, and I see nothing wrong with that.  I mentioned you in a previous blog post.  I was talking about how so many are afraid of talking about suicide because of how depressing the subject is.  The truth of the matter is, so much of the stigma surrounding one's death seems to involve what's still going on in this life, especially with those the person has left behind.  So many of us are afraid of the thing itself, without ever knowing 100% what it's actually like.  I'll be honest, I've had fears, but it's mostly the eternal torment thing.  A matter of "what if my fate is sealed?"  But on the other hand, if we just die out and have no emotions, one can't help but wonder if that is such a bad thing, especially given the things we've dealt with here on planet Earth.

     It means a lot knowing I could write this letter to you, even though you aren't able to read or respond.  I have listened to the song you had recorded before you killed yourself; "I'll See You Yesterday."  I pretty much listened to it over and over again over the next few days after finding out about you killing yourself.  If I was to have a funeral, I'd want that and "I'm Still Here" (the version you released in late 2008, it just sounds a bit better) to be played.  But then again, with me, I sometimes think people shouldn't go overboard paying for funerals, as there are other ways of remembering people.  I'm pretty sure you're familiar with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  I always think of their debut single from 1967, "Buy for Me the Rain."  The last line says, "Gravestones cheer the living dear, they're no use to the dead."  But then again as I wrote that, I was thinking about how much it'd mean to us if we were ghosts looking at the scenery and seeing how much we were loved.  By the way, the following month after your death, I stumbled upon an unreleased song that was omitted from your self-titled album; "Why We Love."  I guess you could say it was of many unreleased songs I'd found during that time period that inspired my first post, asking how cool it would be if we had a national holiday where all unreleased songs were released to the public.  But it's time for me to go ahead and wrap this letter up and get some sleep.  I really need it after a series of sleepless nights.  I got my Spotify playlist going with Lila McCann singing and I'm glad to have the luxury of falling asleep to it.  Wherever you are, or whatever is going on, I hope it is good.

Sincerely,

Tristian