Some failures save a life. For Shaunna Harrington, failure became her most incredible gift. At fourteen, she tried to die, carrying more pain than any child should ever know. Years later, she tried again, her body tired, her spirit desperate to disappear into silence. But the world refused to let her go. Twice, she survived suicide, and twice, she was pulled back into a world that still needed her.
Shaunna grew up with a heart that felt everything too deeply. She loved hard, cried easily, and carried the weight of other people’s pain like it was stitched into her skin. Depression wasn’t a visitor; it was a housemate who refused to leave. It stayed through every season, whispering that she didn’t belong, that maybe the world would spin just fine without her.
On May 4th, years apart, Shaunna tried to end her life. The coincidence haunted her later, when she looked through old hospital records and realized both her attempts fell on that same day. She could never explain why. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence at all, but something cosmic, a strange loop in time that wanted to teach her what living really meant. She decided to call May 4th her gift, the day she failed beautifully at dying.
Shaunna became a nurse, the kind of nurse who feels everything. She learned to walk into rooms filled with heartbreak and still hold her head high. She listened to the stillness of a patient’s chest when life had already slipped away. She watched families collapse into grief, their sobs echoing down sterile hallways, and she stood quietly beside them, letting her presence speak what words could not. There were moments she thought she couldn’t do it anymore. The death, the loss, the weight of witnessing so much sorrow. But each time, something inside reminded her that this was exactly where she belonged. She wasn’t just a nurse. She was a bridge between pain and peace, witnessing both endings and beginnings.
Shaunna learned that healing wasn’t about erasing suffering but understanding it. She saw how her own pain had prepared her for this sacred work. When she guided a mother through childbirth or held a grieving husband after loss, she quietly held her own history in her hands. Whenever she comforted someone in darkness, she reassured the girl she once was, who didn’t believe she was worth saving. Depression still visited her, like an old ghost she’d learned to live with. Some mornings, it whispered from the edges of her mind, reminding her of the hole she used to hide in. But instead of running from it, she began to listen. She realized that bravery wasn’t pretending the darkness didn’t exist, but sitting in it long enough to see where the light could enter.
Shaunna no longer saw suffering as an enemy. She treated it like a misunderstood companion, one that shows up uninvited but always brings a lesson. She knew what it felt like to be buried under despair; because of that, she could recognize the flicker of hope in others even when they couldn’t. Her job wasn’t to save people from their pain but to help them face it without drowning. She often thought about the little girl she used to be, the one who thought suicide was the only way out. That child didn’t know she would one day grow into a nurse who helps others breathe through their storms. That child didn’t realize that surviving would become her most significant act of love.
Shaunna writes now, not for attention, but for truth. She writes for the ones who still sit in silence and hide their scars under long sleeves and quiet smiles. She writes to remind them that their stories matter, that failure isn’t the end, it’s proof that life still wants them here. She swallows a small purple pill every morning, a gentle reminder that healing is chemical and spiritual. She keeps showing up, loving people hard, holding space for their pain, and choosing, again and again, to stay. Her life, once marked by suicide, has become a testament to survival. And in that survival, there is beauty.
