Mallory Deyermand pushes a stroller containing her bubble-blowing daughters, ages 4 and 2, at the Grief and Loss in Motion Suicide Awareness Prevention/Postvention Walk.
When Jim – not his real name – again meets his son, Richard, who died a year ago of suicide, in the afterlife, his first question will be “What were you thinking?”
But, until then, Jim can take comfort in the time he had with his son.
“I’m just thankful I had 18 years with him,” said Jim, who lives in Mineral Ridge.
As Jim walked the Brookfield High School track Sept. 13 for Grief and Loss in Motion’s annual Suicide Awareness Prevention/Postvention Walk, he talked about his son’s journey and his own since Richard’s death.
Richard was a good kid and got good grades, but turned dangerously inward during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jim said. Following Richard’s high school graduation, “He was struggling, but I thought he had turned it around,” Jim said. “He was working a little bit, had a lady friend. He had goals of making more money.”
Things seemed to be on that track right up until Richard died, Jim said.
After Richard’s death, Jim sought therapy with Jack Daniels. But, after concluding that alcohol doesn’t solve anything, he discovered music therapy, started embracing the one-day-at-a-time approach to life and compiled a bucket list of things that he wanted to do, Jim said.
He also embraced the philosophy espoused by Amy Zell of Grief and Loss, whom he met shortly after Richard’s death.
“The worst has happened,” Zell told Jim. “Now, it’s time to move on. You just keep going and have different outlets.”
Moving on is not something you just do, Jim said, but he has learned to better manage the setbacks, embrace the advances and prepare for what he hopes will be a long life.
Mallory Deyermand of Girard has a lot going on in her life, what with two daughters ages 4 and 2. But, as she pushed their stroller around the track and the girls blew bubbles, Deyermand’s attention was not solely on the girls.
“I lost my dad six years ago to suicide,” Deyermand said. “He was a veteran,” and his name was Josh Holmes.
Deyermand said she had no inkling that her father was suicidal at the time of his death. Looking back, she saw signs she couldn’t recognize while he was alive.
“I just like to try and bring awareness to it now,” she said.
The walk is all about making connections between people, said Zell, of Brookfield, who has struggled with suicidal thoughts and lost her son, Tyler Neral, to suicide when he was 16.
“If you’re hurting, you’re not alone,” she said.
The walk did not attract as many people as Zell had hoped, but she said that she knows that it takes more than a little effort for someone who has lost a loved one to suicide to participate in an event that will bring back those memories.
“I also know that people are hurting right now and, when you’re hurting, it’s hard to go out to a community event because you have to put that mask on and be social,” she said.
Zell has chosen the route of being social by creating Grief and Loss, lobbying for the creation of a county suicide investigation team, and making herself available at events and privately to offer guidance, support and alternatives for people who have experienced a suicide loss.
But, she’s not the only one out there and she can’t do it alone. At the walk, Zell presented the President’s Volunteer Service Award to Tristan Verrill, who organizes the Ride for Roy Suicide Prevention/Postvention Awareness Run, which raises money for suicide prevention and postvention and grief education programs; and Zell’s husband, John, who helps bring her ideas to fruition and is a worker bee at Grief and Loss events.
Starting sometime this year, Grief and Loss will inaugurate a Survivor of Suicide Attempt Support Group, Zell said.
