The night of the call was a blur. Driving to meet my family, I rolled down the window, hoping the icy January air would knock me back into reality. Within hours, we were cleaning out her apartment. I moved through it in a daze, packing up a life that had just been lived. For days, I didn’t eat or sleep. I stayed numb through all of it: the apartment, the planning of the funeral, the funeral itself. That numbness was a shield until a woman at the service told me what my sister did was selfish. At that moment, my shield shattered. Didn’t she know the battle she had faced against her own mental health?
What followed was a silence I wasn’t prepared for. I reached out to friends, poured my heart out, and was met with nothing. I understand now that they didn’t know what to say. But at the time, it deepened an isolation that is hard to describe. I was surrounded by people who loved me, and yet I felt completely alone in what I was carrying. No resources found me. No one knocked on my door. In the depths of my grief, I had to find my way to help entirely on my own. I barely knew where to start.
The turning point felt like sunshine after the longest winter of my life. I found a support group for suicide loss survivors where I shared my story in broken sentences, interrupted by tears, and no one flinched. I didn’t have to explain or apologize. Healing quietly took root, a foundation built by people with shattered hearts just like mine.
My support group leader gave me an image I’ve never forgotten: grief is like a boulder. It’s hard to carry at first, but you eventually find the right grip. The weight remains. You just get stronger and learn how to carry it better.
Losing Kaylee broke me open, and on the other side of that grief, purpose found its way in. This newfound purpose led me to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where I first served as a Walk Chair for the Rochester Out of the Darkness Walk, bringing thousands of loss survivors together over the years to honor their loved ones. I wanted to do more, so I went back to school to get my Master’s in Social Work. Most recently, I’ve taken on the role of leading the Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors (LOSS) Teams project across Genesee, Orleans, and Wyoming counties. This is the most personal work I have ever done.
LOSS Teams are trained volunteers and professionals who respond directly to survivors in the immediate aftermath of a loss. Showing up where survivors are, in their hardest moments, so no one has to find their way to help alone. They bring presence, resources, and the quiet but powerful message that you are not alone in your pain. It is the response I never had and always needed. LOSS Teams are located across New York State and the U.S with more information available here.
Community doesn’t just help us survive grief. It reminds us we were never meant to carry it alone. To anyone who has lost someone to suicide: there is another side to this grief, and there are people ready to help you find it.
