It’s not as if I don’t recognize that people have been saying good-bye forever. Heading out to hunt, to battle, to school, for jobs, to chase dreams. Knowing that doesn’t make our good-bye any less real or sad, it just makes everyone else’s more poignant. How do all of our hearts make the transition? The fact that it is so hard means we were fortunate enough to love so fully. Our hearts are heavy but our souls are full. We never really do belong to anyone else, we just have a chance to share in a part of each other’s story – and that is a gift beyond measure. The mingling of our stories allow us to learn about ourselves, about humanity, about compassion and humor. I will try my best not to dwell too long on the hardness of the good-bye but rather celebrate the softness of the memories we were blessed to make – and look forward to all those yet to come!
Monthly Archives: July 2016
Project Semicolon – What it Taught Me
It started in the days following her death. This loss, which rocked us to the core, couldn’t be in vain. Surely there would be a way to turn that pain into something productive, something that would hopefully help others not experience the same heartache. I discovered the Semi-colon project online quite randomly, and once I started reading about Amy Bleuel’s story and her mission behind the project I was convinced this was something we needed to bring to Tallahassee. Amy lost her father; in the aftermath of that loss, and because of her own personal struggles with depression, she came to identify with the beautiful analogy of us being the author of our own lives and just like in a sentence we can choose to end it with a period or simply pause with a semi-colon and go on – she wanted us all to go on. She invited people around the world to draw a semi-colon on their wrist to help spread this hope and promote awareness and hopefully help break the stigma of talking about suicide and depression and mental illness. By the thousands, and around the world, people identified with what she was saying. Many took it one step farther and decided they wanted this symbol to be with them always so rather than just drawing it on they had a tattoo of a semi-colon added to their wrist or somewhere visible.
When I approached Jennie at No Regrets about this idea she was immediately on board! I’ve known Jennie through our mutual friend Stacey Reinstein for over 20 years. What I didn’t realize when I asked Jeannie about this was that she too had suffered great loss because of suicide. This was a project very close to her heart too. We were meant to work on it together! My hope was that she was willing to give a good portion of the proceeds from each tattoo to our local NAMI chapter. She was incredibly generous and agreed to donate half of what every tattoo would cost. Most were priced at $50, so for every person who showed up that day to get a tattoo we would raise at least $25!!
Initially I was going to just use the power of social media to spread the word, but then decided to reach out to my friend Nanette at Moore Communications Group to see if she might offer some advice on helping me get the message out. She put me in touch with folks at the newspaper and at WTXL and before I knew it I was being interviewed and was able to spread hope and awareness in a much broader way! Giving the interview, and being transparent about the loss of Toni and Andy was not easy, but I know there are so many people that can identify with this loss unfortunately and so many currently struggling. My sincere hope is that even one person felt they were not alone because of the message of the interview!
The day of the event came very quickly and Chris and I decided he would drop me off and I would stay for a few hours and talk to folks and get my own tattoo and then he would pick me back up. That is not what happened at all! We arrived as things were just starting and there was already a full house! We ended up both staying for 11 hours straight! Folks were willing to put their name on the list and hang out for as long as it took to get their tattoo. Because there was a wait the entire day we were able to really connect with those in the waiting room and talk to them about what brought them there that day, here is a list of some of the reasons for the tattoo that my new friends were brave enough to share that day:
PTSD
Friend having life support removed – she was in a coma from drinking too much
Loss of mother and brother to suicide
Bi-polar disorder
Body image struggles
Postpartum depression
Depression related to sexuality
Loss of spouse
Loss of father
Bullying
Prior to Toni’s death I lived in a bubble. Inside that bubble I didn’t grasp the depths of people’s pain and how alone and desperate they can feel. I didn’t understand how critical it is for them to feel hope through some source and in most cases to get professional help. After her death, and then several months later the death of Andy, my bubble was burst and I couldn’t claim ignorance any longer about these realities. After spending the day with some truly remarkable people at the semi-colon event, people writing their stories day after day – even when it isn’t easy – I have hope that the narrative can have a different ending. We need to be there for one another, helping co-author those all important sentences in each others’ stories, the ones where a semi-colon will hopefully be the choice rather than a period!
Devolving.me 