THE KIDS WERE HERE: This is What Honoring My Brother Looks Like

When it came time to post for this month it did not take me long to know what I should post about. Though it has been a busy month and many, many, many things have taken place which I could post about, one stood out as the most important to share.

On January 7th, 2008 I lost my only biological sibling--my older brother Chad-- to suicide. This is something that I hope no one every has to experience. The days and years since that very day have been filled with many emotions from anger and bitterness to feeling sorry for myself to hating the world to wanting to know why to sadness and grief. It has only been recently that I have been able to shift some of those emotions to joy and happiness as I can recall memories of my brothers life and I can remember the happy times. The happy moments are finally starting to outweigh the sad, though the sad moments still surface time to time as I miss my brother daily. The hurt never goes away, it only gets less. Time helps to ease the pain but another thing which has helped to make it through these moments is the support I have found from an amazing foundation The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, or the AFSP.

Last year I participated in the walk for the first time in honor of my brother. That year through donations from family and friends I was able to donate $1,100 in honor of my brother. Following that year I was asked to help chair the walk for 2012 in Springfield. Reluctantly I agreed to do so, as this would be something totally out of my comfort zone. So to fast forward to October of 2012--it had been a whirlwind adventure for me!!!

The AFSP hired a wonderful girl by the name of Katherine to help with the walk in Springfield. Therefore she and I teamed up to pull off what turned out to be a totally amazing walk (if I may say so myself) on October 14th, 2012 at Washington Park. The whole adventure from the planning phases to the publicity for the walk to the actual walk, have really made me reach outside myself and step outside of my box in order to make this happen. I was on News Channel 20, Katherine and I were on the radio, and I spoke at the walk. Had I not had the support and encouragement from my family and friends I would not have been able to reach out to others who may be experiencing some of the same things that I have been over the years. There IS strength in numbers, as I definitely learned here with the walk. I know for a fact that I did make a difference and I will continue to be involved with this walk and the AFSP as long as I am able.

The pictures here may not exactly be all of my family as this project was intended to be for, but ON this day ALL these people were my family. We all had a common ground. We all had emotion. We all had tears. BUT we all gained STRENGTH for that moment, on that day. SO that said, my photographic skills were definitely not at the forefront of my mind and my emotions simply took the pics. And you will see as well that I am in a good deal of the pics snapped by my husband....

Thank you to all my friends and my family who donated to this years walk. As a result I was able to turn in over $1,500 to the AFSP in my brother's name. I cannot thank you enough.

To all those of you reading this please do one thing for me. Call a family member. Hug someone. Tell someone you love them. Lend a hand to someone in need. Make amends. TODAY. Why? Because tomorrow may be too late..........