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Mud and Flowers Mental Health Awareness Day 2026 988 Suicide & Crisis Hotline #AFSP #Trauma #MentalHealth #IfYouFeelHopeless #Grief
Suicide awareness month came and went.
As October crept up, I realized that it would mark 30 years since my father took his own life.
I debated on writing this essay; part of me wanting to leave privacy and my experience in the innermost corners of my heart and mind.
I kept circling back to the way that The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) opened me to hope, connection, and resiliency.
I have seen over the decades the way storytelling inspires others to know we are not alone–we are intertwined in many ways and share more commonalities in being human than we realize.
I am no expert on grief.
I stay humble to it and honor the process.
I have learned to hold it with more grace and care over the years.
I hope this small share does something for someone else who needs it…
like I once so desperately did.
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.
-Mary Oliver
“I’m going to need your help. California would be best, but your mother won’t let me take you. Let’s go down the road and see this other apartment I just found.”
Throughout the summer I tagged along with my father as he searched for apartments. I never knew if he would be enthusiastic and full of drive or if I would come upon the other version, where he was somewhat unresponsive on the couch, sucked into a cloud of heaviness so thick that it held him there for the rest of the week.
On this day, though, he was bigger than life itself.
Joy filled me.
I got to tag along.
His scent entered before we got through the door.
Old Spice.
Cigarettes.
Worn leather.
I watched his beautiful charming smile and laughter fill the lobby as the property manager went over the specifics of the apartment with him.
“Other than them visiting I will have no one to talk to, so we are going to go get an African Grey. Did you know how smart those birds are? We’ll be best friends!”
Laughter and charm filled the lobby.
Excitement filled me.
Another pet?
As an animal lover, I knew that this was a “good” day and I was taking advantage of it.
Sure enough, off we went to a bird specialty shop to explore.
But we never got the bird.
He never got the apartment.
It's been 30 years now.
But I can still see and feel the details from that morning it happened.
The smell of V05 shampoo on my hair.
The way the toaster oven start button stuck for a few seconds before starting to crisp my frozen blueberry waffles.
Mid-day I felt sick at school. I went to the nurse, yearning for some relief.
“Would you like me to call home sweetie?”
Home?
Home. I thought.
That was the last place I wanted to be right now.
My parents were in the middle of a divorce.
Shadows of domestic violence crept over the house. Most days I was with friends or sleeping somewhere else.
“Sweetie?”
“No thank you. I will go back to class.”
Little did I know that I would return from school later that day and be unable to find my father.
My palms were sweaty as I sat on the vinyl chair in the circle, taking in each face.
Had it been a few months since that day?
Or a year?
How did my mom even find this place?
I was just a young teen and had no idea what a support group meant or if I was expected to talk about the bottomless pit of despair and sorrow I was holding. How does one assign words to how confusing it was when I sometimes felt nothing, just numbness.
I definitely did not want to be here.
Then, suddenly someone was speaking.
Sharing.
Telling me.
Us.
Showinging their pain.
Their son had taken his life so many years ago. She was steady.
Full of grief, but giving.
Full of pain, but moving forward.
Sharing the ways she had been holding grief and finding joy in her life at the same time.
In that moment I felt relief and seeds of hope.
Do people survive this?
Is there a way forward with this massive amount of grief and pain?
Neither felt like a possibility just moments ago. I sat wide mouthed now. In shock and awe of their loss, but also their ability and bravery to share and embrace each new day with hope. To be here so many years later sharing.
Could I too one day be this?
A person with so much grief, but also living, filled with some sort of hope.Something that looked like joy and supporting others?
My mom came home from work that afternoon after we got home from school because we all kept calling her.
“We can’t find dad, but his car is here. It is so weird.”
“OK, I will be right home. Just stay put.”
My mom came home.
My mom found him, but he was gone.
My father had taken his life.
I can still feel the grass between my toes. The pounding of my heart. Being directed, shouted at, to run to my neighbor’s house, thinking at that moment only about my sneakers and not understanding why I couldn’t just put them on first.
What was so important?
So urgent?
I remember the way my neighbor’s rec room began to cave in.
The floor dissolving under my damp feet.
The sadness on their face.
The pity they held as they looked at me.
The way they stumbled for words.
And somehow we knew seconds before the words came out.
I remember the way that shock slowly washed over us all, perhaps as a buffer for the storm of grief that was approaching.
Life after losing someone to suicide.
Life after losing my father.
I think of that young girl I was and I wish I could go back to hug her, show her the beauty that lay ahead, whisper to her…
“Keep going, don’t be afraid, the pain is not who you are, it is just what has happened.”
I wish I could rub her back at night, even when years later, her mind would play tricks on her,
hearing her dad’s car pull up late at night like when he was alive and worked the doubles.
The car alarm beeping to lock the car doors.
Only to get up and look out the window and realize that it was only a memory, no car was there, he was still gone.
I wanted so badly to go back and be with her in that early pain.
Since I couldn’t go back to her and hold her, I anchored my desire in the early hope that began to take root:
connection, support, storytelling, resilience.
I became a client.
Seeking out mental health therapy for myself throughout my early years and into adulthood as I unraveled my own trauma, sought to dismantle intergenerational patterns, and find healthier ways to navigate stress and my own emotions.
I became an advocate.
Supporting new mothers, offering postpartum support, creating groups and facilitating connections.
I became a source of support for young adults.
Working in higher education helping students find their way when they felt lost and confused.
I became a mental health therapist.
Dedicating my profession to supporting, honoring and witnessing others sort through their own stories, transitions, mental health conditions and meaning making.
I became a mother.
Working each day to be curious about how to show up as the best version of myself for them and to see the ways to unweave generational patterns that no longer serve me. How we all can be our most authentic selves. Looking into their eyes with pride and hope for a new future.
I became a wife.
Setting aside fear and skepticism. Embracing vulnerability, love, friendship and connection.
Dedicating myself to loving another. Allowing myself to be loved.
And I am still a daughter and sister.
To other survivors of loss who have their own stories of resilience, hope and strength. With
whom I have gone through the decades with as life has presented challenges and joys.
And also to my father.
Who I still grieve for 30 years later, but with an understanding that grief has been an anchor for me, allowing me to continue to remember my father and hold space for whatever that may bring, year to year.
988 Suicide & Crisis Hotline at 988
Crisis Text Line (text TALK to 741741)
afsp.org to learn more
#MentalHealth #Grief #AFSP
@americanfoundationforsuicideprevention
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