My name is Anthony Lewis. I am 36 years old, I’m from Tacoma, Washington, and it is with deep sadness that I introduce myself as a widower to suicide.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. In my youth, I majored in creativity, and minored in my schoolwork. I was always known for drawing in my notebook instead of paying attention in class, a key attribute in ADHD, one of my first mental health diagnoses, the other being chronic depression. In high school, I was introduced to photography, and it instantly replaced my drawing and became my new creative outlet. Later in life, hiking became my new hobby, and the outdoors became both my sanctuary and my creative outlet, with my passions for nature and photography competing on the trails. Photography, especially landscape and nature work, gave me a way to slow down, observe, and connect to something greater. I spent years chasing auroras, mountain light, and quiet moments through my lens, always looking for the stillness in the chaos.

When I met Alisa, everything changed. She was the person who understood me in a way no one else ever had. What started with a Tinder match with the woman who described herself as “A Chicago fish in a Seattle pond” turned into nearly a decade of deep love, growth, and a shared life built on mutual respect and connection. We were married in 2018, and through all of life’s curveballs, she was my constant, my partner, my grounding force, and the reason that everything I did felt meaningful.

As life progressed in adulthood, so would my diagnoses. I was additionally diagnosed with anxiety disorders, and I would discover that it was not chronic depression I was suffering from, but rather its mania inclusive counterpart in bipolar II (formerly known as manic depression).

On March 1st, 2025, Alisa died by suicide after a long battle with depression. Her loss dismantled my world. The silence, the questions, the weight of everything left behind. There's no map for that kind of pain. But in the aftermath, I found myself writing. At first, just to survive, but once I started, I would do it near-incessantly. Then, I wrote to make sense of what had happened. After that, I kept writing more and more, because people were being moved by my words. Others who were widowed or bereaved by suicide would find comfort and soothing to their sense of loneliness to hear shared sentiments. Some who were considering leaving their loved ones behind would see my posts on reddit and reach out to me to tell me that I’ve just changed their mind. Our story is saving lives. My curse is a gift to others.

The people I had comforted and the people I had made reconsider suicide became the inspiration to share this story of ours, but Alisa was my reason. She was always a staunch advocate for raising mental health awareness, and I realized I had stumbled upon my own natural talent and my best chance at honoring her legacy and furthering her cause, and it was my best chance to do something for her that would surely make her proud.

The book I’ve written is not an answer. It’s not a solution. It’s a raw, unfiltered account of what it means to lose someone you love to suicide and to try and struggle to keep living after. My goal is to continue Alisa’s passion for mental health advocacy in the only way I know how: by telling the truth, even when it hurts.

If my words can help just one person feel less alone, or if they can give someone pause in a moment of darkness, then her impact lives on. And so does mine.