Teenage Suicide Comes to Town

He was the MVP of the freshman high school football team

He was the MVP of the junior varsity high school football team

He was the MVP for the JV basketball team at a tournament

Looks and Charm? - there wasn't a girl in his class that wouldn't go out with him

His family - loving....upper middle class....great people that I am blessed to be able to call friends

Today? - I went to his funeral. He was only 19 years old. A victim to a self-inflicted gunshot to the head last Sunday afternoon in his parent's garage.

As I left the services - after hearing the kids that spoke, I could only think, "what caused him to turn off the road?"

Some of these kids were friends - since kindergarten and first grade.....until he was about 15. They all had a common theme about "what they could have done," or "how they had let him drift out of their lives."


This was a special kid - heck, all kids are. This one was excelling. At some point, he broke from his crowd and went down a different path.

Adolescence is tough enough - teenagers brains don't work the same way adult's do. You parents already knew that but there is scientific proof now. They don't know that today's setbacks aren't lifelong. Moods can shift in a heartbeat.

Throw today's availability and potency of drugs like OxyContin into the mix and it can make that part of life just about impossible to get through.

...and this beautiful young man didn't make the passage - leaving behind an older brother and sister and two parents that are about the nicest people you ever want to meet who will never be the same.

I lost a brother to such a life - I was lucky. I had him around long enough to have had plenty of chances to do something if I could have. I still watched my mom bury her 41 year old son. Though she never let us know, I found evidence after she passed of just how painful it was for her.

....and now I see a family I care about just beginning a nightmare - that won't ever end.

....and I see drugs - and I see someone that made that first persuasion...the first dare...the first overture.... and, though I know that we all make our own choices, it makes me angry.

...and wistful - for what might have been.

Watch your kids - but, more importantly, watch other people's kids. The catchy slogan is "Parents: the anti-drug." While a lot of responsibility lies there, all children are God's children which makes you responsible for others' kids as well. Heck, you MAY BE the only adult that they do listen to.

I have had my share of tragedy hit around me - but this is the first time the third largest killer of our teenagers, suicide, has hit this close........and it is very bothersome.

I'll be back with some holiday happyups tomorrow for all of you - but this will lurk around for some time. I am sure it will move to the front whenever I see my friends...I don't like the thought of that.


Wikipedia teenage suicide