The Last Edition: Turning the Page on My Brother’s Story

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Every life tells a story —page by page, choice by choice.

Some editions end in quiet tragedy, a life edited down by isolation,

by silence, by the poisons that promised relief.

My brother didn’t choose his ending the way it looked.

He simply stopped believing in a rewrite.

Stopped editing, stopped reaching, until the headlines wrote themselves.

This art imagines two covers —two possible final editions.

One is a recap of self-destruction: addiction, loneliness, and the weight of despair.

The other is a rewrite: a life pivoted toward healing, rehab , recovery, and the choice to stay.

The question isn’t how the story ends. It’s when we decide to start again.

What does your Edition say?

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Interested in purchasing these pieces? Send me an email m@margothomas.art to discuss sizes, finishes etc.

Speak Up Reach Out strives to prevent suicide in

Eagle County through training, awareness, and hope

My brother’s death by suicide was not a single, sudden act.

It was the slow unraveling of a story — a series of quiet missteps, moments of pain, and

missed chances for help. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to end his life. He

simply couldn’t see another version of it that felt livable.

When I began creating art for this exhibit, I found myself returning again and again to the

image of a magazine cover. Magazines capture the essence of a moment — the story we

want the world to see. But they also remind us that each issue is temporary, always leading

to the next edition. I wondered: what if we each had a “final edition”? What would it say?

For my brother, I imagine two covers.

The first is dark and heavy, a visual record of slow self-destruction. The headlines might

read:

“Owned by Alcohol.”

“Trapped by Isolation.”

“The Silent Struggle of a Man Who Smiled Anyway.”

It would be filled with the quiet choices that chipped away at his life — the skipped meals,

the unanswered calls, the nights when loneliness grew louder than hope. He wasn’t reckless

or cruel. He was tired. He wanted peace, but he looked for it in things that only deepened his

pain: alcohol, tobacco, and silence.

The second cover — the one that never got published — looks different.

It’s lighter. Honest, but hopeful. The kind of edition where a person chooses to rewrite their

story instead of closing it.

The headlines might read:

“Pivoting in Midlife.”

“Choosing Rehab and Renewal.”

“Still Here. Still Fighting. Still Rewriting.”

That alternate issue is the story of so many people who’ve stood on the same ledge and

turned back. It’s the story of reaching for help, checking into rehab, sitting through the

discomfort, and realizing that healing is not instant but possible. It’s the story of survival —

not because life is easy, but because it’s still worth editing.

Suicide is rarely a single decision made in isolation.

It’s often the result of hundreds of small,

unseen choices that accumulate into hopelessness. A slow narrowing of options until the person feels trapped inside their own mind. My brother didn’t choose death; he lost sight of

any path that led elsewhere.

That’s why I create

Because art can create the space that words sometimes can’t. It allows us to look directly at

the pain — not to glorify it, but to understand it. My hope is that people who see The Last

Edition will recognize that they’re still the author of their story. That no matter how dark

the pages have become, they can still start a new chapter.

Every person has a “next edition” waiting to be written.

It doesn’t have to be perfect — just honest.

Maybe it’s the issue where you pick up the phone instead of the bottle.

The one where you go to therapy, tell the truth, or finally rest.

The one where the headline reads: “Chose to Stay.”

If my brother had seen that possibility — if someone or something had helped him see that

his story wasn’t finished — maybe his last edition would have been a beginning instead of

an ending.

So this exhibit is both an elegy and an invitation:

to look at the stories we’re writing with our choices,

to notice the quiet chapters before the crisis,

and to remember that even when life feels unpublishable,

the press hasn’t stopped.

We are still writing.

We can still change the story.

We can still choose life.