Sally Willard of Ipswich has come to terms with the 1995 suicide of her 21-year-old daughter, but that doesn’t mean the pain has gone away.
“I still have moments of trying to recapture her,” said Willard, who is speaking out as part of International Survivors of Suicide Day today. “I’ll do things like look through her elementary school address book and just pick out bits and pieces. It’s a really hard thing to accept because you don’t want it to have happened, and you don’t want to be living this horror.”
Willard’s daughter, Sarah Devens, was a three-sport, Division 1 athlete at Dartmouth College when she took her own life.
“Most people who kill themselves have a mental illness,” said Willard, who volunteers for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “For me, it felt important to honor Sarah and not get caught up in the stigma.”
When people ask Willard, who also has two sons, how many children she has, “I say I have three children, and one of them died. More often than not, I’ll say she killed herself.”
The Greater Boston AFSP chapter hopes today’s event will ease some of the stigma about losing someone to suicide. In discussion groups held in such cities as Newton, Hyannis, Cohasset, Lawrence and Taunton, participants ranging from parents, siblings, spouses and friends will be encouraged to share their stories. Kristen Fox of South Boston lost her 22-year-old brother, Eric Drobinski of Sudbury, to suicide in 2002, and says her “concern is for people who … are afraid to talk about it. People hide it and are ashamed. There’s nothing to be ashamed about.
“If this could happen to him, it could happen to anyone,” Fox said about her brother, a lacrosse player and avid outdoorsman. “Some people are born with a predisposition to depression and mental health issues.”
Liz Blake lost a close friend from New York in 2005 and will be speaking at the Taunton event. The 25-year-old Brighton woman said sharing her feelings in AFSP groups has been “incredibly healing.”
“Not talking about it does more harm than good,” she said.
For more information on International Survivors of Suicide Day events, go to afsp.org.