The Feeling That No One Cares

“Lonely is not being alone, it's the feeling that no one cares.” -Unknown. 

Evie Jones was a simple girl, who lived in a simple world. She wanted nothing more than to be happy and enjoy everything and everyone that passed through her life. I’m not going to say she was outgoing, confident, or even popular, because those would be lies. Evie was far from your stereotype of perfect, but she was real, and that's what mattered. 

I never thought that I would be standing here today, and speaking to all of you. Especially under the circumstances, but despite what she thought, Evie was an amazing person and she deserves to be remembered as the caring, friendly, and strong person that she truly was. So I’m going to tell you a story, a short and simple story, about Evie. A story about her struggles of living a life in a big city, where mentally, she was all alone.

It all began when she turned 18. She had been depressed long before that but decided to try and escape the sadness by moving to the big city of Atlanta Georgia. She moved into a small two-bedroom apartment where she had an astonishing view of the city. Of course, she needed a roommate to help pay the rent, so she started doing roommate interviews. I was probably the millionth person she interviewed, but apparently, she liked me because she asked me to move in the very next day. Evie and I were polar opposites, I was fire and she was ice, but we were what we both needed at the time. 

Evie and I soon became best friends, we were always hanging out together. It was as if we had known each other our whole lives. As we started getting closer, she started to confide in me. She told me things that she had never told anyone. Things she was too scared to tell anyone because she was scared of the judgment she might get. Evie told me she was depressed, she told me that despite living in this big city with thousands of people, she still felt alone. She knew she had me, but she had so many thoughts running through her mind, and sometimes having me just wasn’t enough. 

I was shocked when she told me all of this. How could someone so kind, and perfect as my best friend possibly be depressed? I, however, did not let my thoughts block out what she had said. Most people probably would have brushed it off and told her she was being dramatic and that she was fine, but looking into her sad blue eyes I could see that she was truly suffering. I was willing to do anything and everything to help her. I hung out with her more, we went shopping together, got our nails done, went to the movies. We had girls nights 3 times a week. I brought her out into the city where we would meet new people and try new things. We took spontaneous adventures to places we’d never been and tried things we’d never done. During all of this, she acted so happy, but I knew deep down she was still hurting. 

One night, I got home from work and found Evie unconscious on the living room floor. She had taken a bunch of different pills at the same time, and overdosed. I immediately called 911, and luckily she survived. A few days later I was able to take her home to the apartment, where she told me why she did it. 

This part is very hard for me to talk about...  

Evie told me that she had gone to a doctors appointment earlier that month, she said she mentioned the migraines, nausea, blurred vision, and other symptoms she had recently been having. The doctors immediately scheduled an MRI, and later told Evie that she had brain cancer. The cancer was too far spread throughout her brain and there was nothing they could do to save her. Evie told me that she had decided that she couldn't live a life like this anymore. She said she was ready to move on, to better things. She then started screaming at me, telling me that I shouldn’t have called 911, that I should have just let her die. 

I knew about everything Evie had been suffering from, so I just stood there silently until she was done screaming at me. I remember her looking at me with those same sad blue eyes, and that's when I went over and held her in my arms while she cried. Evie cried for so long that night, and I just held her and comforted her. I was her best friend, she had become a sister to me, and it didn’t matter what happened, I was never gonna leave her. 

The next morning I made pancakes with fruit that was placed on the pancakes in the shape of smiley faces and hearts (this had been one of our traditions, whenever one of us was upset about something, the other would prepare this exact meal.) The pancakes did manage to put a slight smile on her face, but we both knew there was one thing we hadn’t talked about yet. I started to open my mouth to ask, but Evie just shook her head. I knew she didn’t want to talk about it, so I let her finish her pancakes and relax for the rest of the day. However, I knew that no matter how much time I gave her, she wasn’t going to want to talk about it, so I asked her that night. 

We were sitting on the couch watching Netflix, and I just couldn’t get that question off my mind. So I looked at her and finally asked the question that everybody was so afraid of. How much time did the doctors give you? There was a long pause before Evie looked at me with tears in her eyes and said,

“A year, maybe less, but no more than a year.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear landed on my chest, but still, I got up, went over to the other side of the couch, and sat with her. I never wanted to leave her side, and I didn’t until the very end. I decided that I wasn’t going to let her die without seeing her smile ever again, so we spent her remaining time living our best lives. As it turned out, Evie only had 3 months left, but every second of those short 3 months was made to be worth it. 

I knew that even though she lived in a big city with so many people, Evie was still alone, and there was nothing I could do about that. If she was still alive today, I would reach out and try to get her help, I would stop at nothing to give her happiness, and to be there whenever she needed me and even at times that she didn’t. So my message to all of you is this: It doesn't matter how happy someone looks or acts, It doesn’t matter that they’re always smiling or laughing. That person could be struggling with such a strong feeling of loneliness, so please, just reach out and ask them how they are doing, pay attention, and don’t just ignore even the little signs of depression. If you choose to ignore it, that person could sink deeper into a mindset where no one cares, and then, they too could feel lonely, even in a big city.