Gail lost her son Kyle thirteen years ago when he was 20 years old. A few years after his death she attended a training that enabled her to start a chapter of the HALOS (Hope After a Loved One’s Suicide) support group. I did not know Gail when I reached out to her a few weeks after my loss, but she proved to be very valuable to me in those early days. She had provided me with something that was more important than air–she gave me a glimmer of hope.

Gail explained to me that she had struggled to arrive at a place where she could not only help herself but also be of assistance to others. Since gaining confidence in her role as a surviving mother, she has been active in her community as a spokesperson for other survivors. She is not ashamed of what happened and willingly shares her story because she remembers how important it was for her to hear others openly sharing about their loss. Like the other mothers I interviewed, she does not want a pseudonym. She has worked hard to get to where she is now and wants to maintain ownership of it. Gail said,

“I’ve told my story so many times. I’m not worried if people know who I am. I have no problem with who I am, because that is MY story. That was MY son.“

Gail, who has been a school bus driver for the past 20 years, has three biological children and two stepchildren. Kyle was her youngest child. She reflects on his personality and his love of childhood.

“He was always the easiest child. He was just very easy going He didn’t even hardly ever get mad or anything like that. He LOVED being a KID and he would tell us from a pretty early age like five, six years old that he loved being a kid and he said this as he was growing up,

He never wanted to grow up because he really, really liked being a kid. And in the beginning, sure you’re glad they’re happy as a child so I didn’t think much about it but as his teenage years would go, it did concern us a little.

He was the type of kid that liked to try out a lot of different things. He played different sports -baseball, soccer, wrestling…but each time that he gave something up, it was because something negative would happen. He was a really good ballplayer and one boy sat on the bench ALL the games and Kyle went to the coach and said, “I’ll give up my last two innings so Matt, could play” because he knew this boy he wanted to play and his coach said “No, you’re going to play” because Kyle was a very good ballplayer. So, with that, Kyle came to us and told us that he wanted to quit, which we were really shocked because he really liked it because he didn’t feel it was fair. So I said to him, okay, that’s your decision that you have to tell your coach that, which he did and his coach told us we were terrible for allowing him to quit in the middle of a season because he wanted to give up his time so another boy could play because this coach was all about winning.”

He was 11 years old when this incident occurred. Though Kyle excelled in sports, he was not motivated to perform simply to win. He instead enjoyed the camaraderie and the act of playing itself. She explained,

“The same thing happened when he gave up wrestling after three years because he thought the coach was just…because the coaches… I don’t know if you ever been to wrestling meets, but they SCREAM at these kids. Kyle didn’t like that. So, he just …he was not there for the competition. He was there to enjoy it. And I mean, we never forced our children to do things. And at the end of his wrestling season he told us he didn’t want to go again because he didn’t like these coaches screaming at him. He was very sensitive in that way. . . . I guess part of the problem was he was just too tender-hearted at times and it kind of got him discouraged.”