I wanted to talk about my cousin Christophe, who was 51 and just took his own life.

There is no reason why I should go into the details of this tragedy , what I want to talk about is the impact he had on my life and how to deal with depression.

First let´s go back some years, I was already born when my aunt Michele who  was my mother´s best friend,  introduced her brother, and this is how my family was formed.

The first cousin I knew on that side of the family was my cousin Christophe and later his sister Natasha.  

Christophe trained karate and was very good at it, the particularity of his personality was that he was a big fan of Bruce Lee, I remember it was always a subject to talk about or refer to .

The years passed and we lost contact but I have always been thinking about him one day or another because of that connection with Bruce . A few years ago we reconnected on Facebook and I remember he was very happy that I had reached out.

I knew about his personal struggles, and it had been going on for a while but when I got the call a few days ago I could not handle it.

What made me not ask him how he was doing in time, and would this have changed anything? Probably not , but how do I know that now that it is too late?

I do not know how to deal with this, I am really having a hard time.

I have been reading our interactions on Facebook again and what he had posted under the years on his page, it is pretty clear that he did not feel good for a very long time, I just wish I had said something. I never would have thought it could end like this.

How are we supposed to know that it could go so far? I know of other people that are always negative and post dark stuff from time to time but in his case it was all the time and I did not recognize the difference.

He had his family around and adored his sister so I know that if they could not do anything , nobody could.

So how do we deal with this? As I said the connection with Bruce is why I have been thinking about this particular cousin my whole life, he was so serious and funny about it. Not so long ago he commented a post of mine about Bruce and Brandon, and he wrote : “these two men are exceptional,  I have the deepest respect for them. ”

So, I will finish this post with a wish:

Dear cousin,  I wish with all my heart that you cross their path up there and finally find some peace in your heart ❤