An Anniversary to Remember and a Disease that Should be Talked About

Three years ago this weekend, a dear friend of our family’s took her life at 24 after a long battle with Depression. Mary Lacey is pictured above in between her two sisters. It still seems difficult to imagine that she is gone, and yet her spirit and her light lives on in her mom Anne, her father Scott, her amazing sisters, Lindsay and Annabelle and the countless others whose lives she touched.

I remember like it was yesterday the palpable grief, the broken hearts and outpouring of love for the Gilbride family after Mary Lacey’s death. And I recall vividly the words of the Jesuit who delivered the eulogy at her funeral…

“The most consistent lament I have heard these past few days about Mary Lacey’s death are not mended with easy answers, but only with truthful ones.

Like cancer, certain kinds of emotional depression are terminal-when remissions get shorter and shorter. For some people challenged with depression it can be treated with medicine and added support from others-the person is then able to manage the depression and feel healed or even cured. Many live with the disease emotional illness for a whole lifetime. But in some cases, just like so many cancers, an emotional disease is untreatable and so overpowering- no intervention by anyone or anything can stop its advance. Eventually it kills the person and there is nothing anyone can do. Mary Lacey’s depression was of that kind, the terminal kind. Hers was a medical problem not a moral one…

In a world where we can live to be 60,70,80, or 90 is is easy to let things slide, to let things go until tomorrow. Mary Lacey teaches us in her short life of 24 years that we need to live today for all its worth. Not to dwell on what ifs but to live in the moment of what now.

What is worthy is not the length of life, what is important is the substance of life: the things for which we are willing to live and die; the people whom we love and love us; the values which guide our way on earth; our willingness to help others and allow others to help us. These are the things that count! Not the length of our lives or the length of our resume.”

Mary Lacey, despite her disease, lived life to the fullest and loved with her whole heart. Let’s celebrate her life, and the lives of those who have struggled, and those that continue to, with depression and other emotional illnesses.

Anne, Scott, Lindsay and Annabelle may you feel the love of God, family and friends that surrounds you each day and may you know that Mary Lacey will never be forgotten. We will continue to share stories and memories of Mary Lacey and we must try, as she would want us, to live each day filled with gratitude, love, hope and peace.

One response to “An Anniversary to Remember and a Disease that Should be Talked About”

Mary Beth bongiovanni

September 17, 2016 at 12:25 pm

Thanks for sharing the excerpt from the eulogy. My heart is full of love for Mary and her family and you Court. My school community is wholeheartedly trying to understand how to support young people who struggle as Mary did. Two rising seniors recently ended their own lives and from the sadness and shock now rises a deep desire to learn as much as we can. I’ll share now what I learned from you. Thanks so much.

Looking For Calm