Kevin at a show, 2018 In Honor of Mental Health Awareness Month Mental illness is not something you can plan for. It doesn't offer warnings or wait for the "right" moment to arrive. It simply becomes part of your life, sometimes gradually, other times suddenly. I have learned this not from a textbook or a research study, but by loving my son Kevin and walking beside him through a twelve-year battle with clinical depression. When Kevin attempted suicide in 2008 and was diagnos

Boundaries help us protect our emotional energy and serve as reminders that it’s okay to prioritize ourselves during this season. They are not about shutting people out but about creating space to breathe, heal, and simply be. My time, emotions, and peace are precious. And it’s okay to protect them with care. During grief, certain areas often need boundaries, especially around privacy, time, emotions, and personal belongings. When there has been tension or conflict in any

I didn’t truly grasp the complexity of suffering until I lost my beloved son, Kevin. Before his passing, I experienced pain like many others—disappointments, heartaches, and challenging times. Yet the kind of suffering that burrows deep into your soul and reshapes your view of the world was entirely foreign to me. Suffering, in its essence, transcends mere pain. It embodies the profound emotional, mental, or spiritual distress that weighs heavily on our hearts when something

The hardest part of losing my son is living in the “after.” Suicide divided my life into before and after. I replay our final conversations. I wrestled with guilt. I questioned God. I lived in a fog of disbelief, moving through days that felt heavy and unreal. Yet what has sustained me is not trying to conquer grief, but learning to walk with it. I rediscovered faith. His death by suicide still leaves me grappling with how someone so gentle and creative could suffer so deeply