Suicide Prevention, Iggy, and Alicia Keyes

I have this card, a gift from my friend Michelle, framed and hanging in my office:

The truth is that I'm not really a set-the-world-on-fire kind of person.  I'm more of a curl-up-with-a-book kind of person. 

 

But a few days ago: Here's part of a note from a boarding school friend.  We barely knew each other back then, but our lives have bumped into one another's at unwanted tangents via FB, that great connection point for human experience:

Dear Robin,  . . .  I honor you and your son each day in my prayers. I know you will be happy to hear that you helped me have the courage to call 911 and crisis teams and rescue etc 3 times this summer so my son with shizoaffective bipolar got help. There is stigma, he was angry, not now but still some residual, neighbors are freaked, but he is well, back on meds and he is safe and well. Was in hosp for 6 weeks but better than the terrible alternative. Thank you for helping me face it and do the right thing.  . . .

I had never thought of it that way ~ that we have to pass on courage and strength that we don't have  to those parents and spouses and other loved ones in a position to take action.

 

And tonight: An email from someone I knew back in our days as Montessori moms.  She lost a nephew to suicide this summer, saw my article in our local community paper, and signed up for the walk in October.  He brother wants to know how to work on suicide prevention.  (Wow.  At three months, I wanted to know how to get up in the morning.)  I had to leave the Presbytery meeting where I was rudely reading my emails because I started to cry, remembering what three months was like and wanting so much to go back to Montessori middle school days when our kids were working on their rocket projects.  Not so much setting things on fire.

 

But Alicia Keys is one of my girls.  Trying to burn all that suffering away. Put up with the commercial and listen here.