What it SHOULD be

Yesterday was the "Out of the Darkness" walk. Since Abbie took her own life a little more than seven years ago, it's been a real process of healing. I feel like for the most part, I'm good and healed now. Really. It's not that I miss her less or I'm not bothered by what she did and, quite frankly, what was done to her. It's just that I'm able to walk with less of a limp because of it now. Time. Christ. The stream of healing. I say that because instead of blaming myself and everything else, I've decided to turn the corner and do whatever I can to help the cause of suicide prevention. As I told a reporter yesterday (yeah I work in radio but it's still cool to be interviewed!), it's the most dangerous cause that no one wants to talk about. There's a stigma, "well, they chose". There's all kinds of misunderstanding and bluntly a lack of compassion with suicide when compared to things like cancer and heart disease. Cancer and heart disease deserve compassion, the efforts to end them deserve attention and support. But so does this. We raised a lot of money, more than we had in the previous two years of its existence. That was great. That was fantastic. That will be tremendously helpful. But it wasn't the best part. The best part was the turnout. People just kept showing up. It was beautiful. It was powerful to see the shirts with victims names, faces, and dates. To know that there were all these different stories, but this common, unspoken understanding.
But you want to know what my favorite part was? There was this guy, I'm not going to give his name because I don't how public he wants his story to be. He knows who he is. But he came to the walk. It's personal for him, and his family. Another member of his family chose the same ending that Abbie did. He and the rest of his family had apparently never discussed it. Ever. It had been several years, this wasn't last month. But they never talked what their family member did, how it affected them, what they must've been going through. So this person hears about the walk, and calls two of his family members (sorry about being vague, it's for his confidence) to join him at the walk. They do. They register, they walk. The "central" area was underneath this picnic shelter. After the walk is over they go to the back of this shelter, find a table all to themselves, kind of cast away from the other people. They wanted to be alone. From the other end of the shelter, I see this book. I'm assuming some sort of scrapbook. Pictures, newspaper clippings, that kind of stuff. And I'm told that they were talking about what happened. For the very first time. I watched a couple of them wipe tears from their faces. There was no real sobbing, but you could tell, a wound was being lanced. I watched the guy take off his glasses, I can only imagine so he could reach his tears that he just recently learned he could still cry (that in itself, thrills my heart more than I can tell you). I went to say goodbye to them when I had to leave, and I felt bad for interrupting such a beautiful fellowship. I just hugged him, introduced Lindsay to the other family members, and left. There was nothing that really needed to be said. Small talk seemed insulting.
That will be my image of this (so far) most successful walk. A family, who had avoided acknowledging this devastating wound, now diving in head first. Using this occasion to heal, to allow healing to be done.
We raised over $14,000. Fantastic. That money will help a lot. And I hope that everyone was helped in some way. But I know for sure, I saw it, three siblings coming together for the first time ever to love each other. Love each other closer to wholeness. I am so freaking proud of this guy. So proud. And I bet that the "board" of the walk would agree without hesitation, you can have every nickel of that $14,000 back, if we could have had every person at that walk, share in a moment like these three people did. Community, healing, helping, and love. It was more of a living example of the true intention of Christianity than any conference or church service I'd ever been to.