nearly forgot my broken heart

I can't wrap my head around the fact that her funeral will be on Saturday.
My niece, Jean Marie Morgan, took her life on Sunday.
My brother Smitty broke the news to me last night. I had gone to join the Living Out Loud folks for bingo after my students finished their last test. I ended up leaving the table several times for phone calls that evening from family.
Jean Marie was only 31 years old.
Her birthday had been on Friday.

I wish I had been able to spend more time with her.
She is my stepsister Susan's daughter and has basically been out of my life since Mama died in 2001.
Sure, we would see each other at the Christmas gatherings, while Frank was alive...but he's been dead since 2011.
Then, I saw her for her brother's wedding in 2012...
and her son's first birthday...
and at the baby shower for her brother's first child.

Of course, we saw each other on facebook.
In fact when I was combing her page for a recent photo of her, I found it a difficult task.
Not that there was a scarcity of such - not at all.
But the majority were of her in group shots, surrounded by laughing girlfriends at parties or dinners or just together.
Then there were those candids of her with her son and daughter, with her dear Robert, or her mom, or her brother and his growing family.
And she was always smiling her sweet smile, radiating love.

She has struggled with drug abuse since she was a teen.
Ever since, she has fought with depression, struggling to grasp happiness, self-medicating with alcohol or other substances when no other way helped.
The depression seemed to have taken a new hold after her daughter's birth.
Counseling did not help to elevate her presence in the world.
She and Robert had even lost their children to foster care for a while.
But she had taken steps to change her life for the better last year. I had applauded her actions and voiced my pride in her and love of her.
And now she is gone.

I know Chris Cornell's song is about a lost lover, but it speaks to my heart of grief, the grief I already associate with this month for my Daddy, my friend Sam Johnson, and my mother-in-law Pat.
Ever since I heard the song on the radio this morning as I drove to school, the refrain won't turn loose of me.

I almost forgot my broken heart,
it's taking me miles away
from the memory of how it broke apart,
here we go 'round again...

May God reunite your spirit with those of Pop and Grammy, Jean Marie.
Please give them big hugs for me.