“I lost someone incredible, who meant the world to me, and showed me how to find the light even on my darkest days.”

“I’ve survived all of the days I thought I wouldn’t. I can tell you I will be here for another birthday and another Christmas, when a couple weeks ago I couldn’t tell you if I’d be here another minute.”

“I am learning how to feel the water in the air. I am learning how to treat myself with love and forgive myself for my past mistakes.”

“Trust the process, feel the fear, and do it anyway. Recovery is everything I ever wanted and more. It’s worth it.”

“My youngest son, Benjamin, died by suicide in 2010, which catapulted me a million miles away into a strange new existence.”

“A death, and particularly a death by suicide, teaches us lessons about life through a prism of puzzles.”

“In a way, beginning Narratives of Hope has been a celebration of how far I’ve come. I am still standing and I’m alive, and it has never felt so undoubtedly clear that this is my purpose in my life.”

“But I know better now, that I dove down to unleash my light, inhaled it until my whole being glowed so white that the darkness faded into a brightly lit jungle of unimaginable color and creation.”

“He was always so loved — I don’t know if that is enough in the face of something as formidable as a serious mental illness, but I wish it was.”

“If I called you one more time then, would it have changed it, or made a difference? Am I foolish, slightly selfish, to actually think that… I guess I just miss you.”