5 years. 1,827 days. 43,848 hours. 2,630,880 minutes. 157,852,800 seconds. That’s how long it’s been since you’ve been gone. Some days, it feels like a lifetime some days. Other days, it feels like it was just yesterday.

I remember the phone call. I remember the way the room smelled and the color of the sheets on the pull-out couch. I remember, oddly, not being surprised when my mother told me you took your life. I remember the agonizing painful cries of my loved ones mourning an unnecessary death.

I remember it all.

There are so many things I wish I could say to change it all, but we can’t change the past. We can only try to make a difference in the present, hope for the best, and pray our hearts aren’t broken again. I have so many words that I wish I could type on this page, but they’re jumbling around too fast and confused. I wish I had words to say to comfort others feeling the same pain I feel, but again, I don’t know what to do.

I wish, I wish, I wish.

So instead, I fight against suicide. I fight against the mental illnesses that take 42,773 American lives each year. I fight for those who are too burdened or too tired to fight themselves. I fight for myself, because sometimes I even ask myself if this world is worth it anymore.

I fight for you because your memory deserves more than a suicide sticker. Your memory deserves to be unburdened of all the unanswered questions. Your memory deserves to continue living through love, not anger. Your memory deserves to fly free and know that we miss you.

We miss you.

I am the walk coordinator for the University of Georgia’s Second Annual Out of the Darkness Campus Walk, which raises money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and awareness for suicide prevention. This year I am raising money and awareness in your honor. I miss you immensely, and I hope your story can save a life.

I would do anything to have you back, but thanks to you, I can make a difference. I like to think that you didn’t take your life for yourself but to make me a better person. You have. You’ve taught me to love with no boundaries.

You’ve taught me that life is too short to go to bed angry or to live too safely or with too much fear. You’ve given me a passion so strong that my body shakes when I speak about it. You’ve changed my life, for the better. I would give anything to say goodbye or to change your mind, but thanks to you, I can change the mind of millions of people.

Fly high Jaay Bird. We’ll never forget you.

(Written by Nicole Hammett)

My grandmother was there the day I was born.

She kept me multiple days of the week before I began school and many afternoons once I had started. She taught me stories, rhymes, songs, and lessons.

I have nothing but precious memories from my childhood visits at my grandmother’s house, and because she lived alone, I know she cherished my company as well. Part of who I am today is because of her.

However, as much as I hate to admit it, things changed as I grew older. As I entered my teens, I began to dread the boredom that I associated with my grandmother’s basic cable, internet-free house.

Although she lived next door to me, I began visiting less and less, and once I had my drivers license, I had stopped going almost altogether. I only made the trip next door on holidays or when my mother made me. I had no idea at the time what a mistake I was making.

It was my senior year of high school when my mother noticed my grandmother’s memory beginning to fade.

It began with her short-term memory, and you had to retell her things multiple times. However, she could still tell you in perfect detail stories of her childhood. She soon began to forget names, and her doctors explained that she was suffering from dementia.

We knew it would get worse, we just had no idea how fast. Within a couple months, she began telling elaborate stories of conversations she had had that day with deceased relatives, talking to voices in her head, hiding from people she believed to be in her house trying to hurt her, and her “trips to heaven” she had made that day in order to talk to her sister.

She once called 9-1-1 on my father at two in the morning for beating me and mom, when my dad was out of state at the time (and he’s never harmed a hair on our heads). The most hurtful moment to my family, however, was the night she did not know who her own daughter, my mother, was. The child she raised and who now had taken care of her every day for years was only a stranger standing in her bedroom.

I began to visit her more often, but I felt extremely guilty for how I dreaded seeing her and the state she was in. Seeing my grandmother, who used to be so strong and independent, now unable to walk and not in her right mind broke my heart.

So, I did another horrible thing that I would regret: I avoided the visits so I would not have to experience the sadness and hurt.

My family, as well as myself, soon realized that we were dealing with my grandmother’s dementia and our pain in a completely wrong way. I now understood that I needed to face my grandmother and cherish the time I had left with her instead of living with the fear of what I might witness.

So, I began to accompany my mother on visits more often. The way we interacted with her changed, as well.

Before, we fought her and the stories she came up with in her head. We told her she was wrong, and that the people she saw and voices she heard were only in her mind. We tried to force the fact that the stories she invented were not true.

However, this did not bring peace, only anger.

It hurt her to think that we did not believe what she said and that we thought she was crazy, and she was beginning to resent us for it. And the times she started to accept that we might be right and what she believes is false, it only filled her with fear.

She did not deserve an emotional roller coaster such as this in her last few years.

So, my family decided to deal with the situation in a lighter way. Instead of disagreeing and fighting with my grandmother, we acted as if her stories were true, laughed about them with her, and asked her for more details.

If she said that she had been running around town with her father all day, we ignored the facts that she couldn’t leave her bed and that he had passed away decades ago, and instead asked them where all they’d been and if they had a good time.

Although it was bittersweet, seeing my grandmother not so frustrated made everything easier to deal with both for us and her.

That next fall, I left for college and only saw my grandmother every few months when I visited home. One night, while sitting in my dorm, I received the call from my mother that I had been dreading but expecting for the past few months.

She told me that my grandmother had taken a turn for the worse, and that this was more than likely going to be her last night.

It was in that moment that my past regrets overwhelmed me. Every day that I dreaded going to see her. Every moment that I ignored her and sat playing on my phone. Every visit that I avoided for fear of what I might see.

I only had a few moments with the woman who raised my mother and helped to raise me, and I had taken them for granted. I had not been around enough when she needed love and family the most.

And now at the end of her life, I had no way to get home from college in time.

I still thank God that this was a false alarm. She lived not only until the next morning, but even though the doctors only gave her a few weeks, she is still alive today. I believe the Lord wanted to teach me a lesson in love, family, strength, and courage.

He wanted to teach me to cherish the moments I’m blessed to live, and the moments I’m given with my friends and family. And most importantly, He wanted to give me more time with my grandmother, which shows what a gracious, giving, and amazing God He is.

Soon after this incident, my family decided to place my grandmother in a nursing home. Although it was incredibly difficult to hear how much she wanted to go home, this turned out to be a wonderful decision.

Her mind still goes in and out, but the care and steady routine has greatly increased her health. While she once was too weak to lift even her hand, today she is more alert and has more energy to interact and talk with us.

I enjoy every moment I am given to listen to her tell me stories of everywhere she has been “running around to” all day.

Sadly, the doctors decided a few months ago to take my grandmother off her medicine for dementia. Her days are now categorized as “good days” and “bad days.”

Some days she will remember us all, while on others it is a struggle. Some she can be angry and yelling, and other times she is sweet and says she loves us.

Some days she claims she’s been running up and down the halls, and others she’ll admit she’s been laying in her bed all day.

The holidays were definitely different with her in the nursing home for the first time. There was a felt absence at our annual family get-togethers.

Still, I could not be more thankful to still have been able to visit her on Christmas Day. She was in high spirits, talkative, and it was altogether a “good day.” My mother said that her mom having a good day was all she needed for this to be a great Christmas, and I couldn’t agree more. Even if we did have to remind Granny a few times what day it was.

Having a loved one suffer from dementia has been one of the most difficult things my family has had to deal with.

Every moment is cherished, both the good and the bad, with the good moments being priceless gifts from God.

Although it has made me regret my past and the time I could have spent with her and chose not to, as well as all the days I am away at college, I have come to peace with the fact that I cannot change it. Dwelling on mistakes and making myself miserable will do nothing for me, my family, or my grandmother, and I know that all I need to focus on is my time with her now and in the future.

I won’t make the same mistakes again, and I won’t take advantage of the gift of more time with her that God has given us.

I don’t mind if she doesn’t remember me now. I don’t mind listening to her stories and going along with them. Sitting in the nursing home with her and being in her presence, 100 percent, not engulfed in technology, is all it takes to make the most out of our time.

The simple act of being there for our family shows a powerful amount of love in itself, and I now realize the importance of something as simple as time.

(Written by Madilene Lake)

If you had told me in the fall of 2005 that 10 years later I would have voluntarily run four half marathons and a marathon, my 13-year old self would have said “As if” and gone back to texting on her pink RAZR phone, not so silently judging you for suggesting such a ridiculous idea.

At the time, I hated running. I hated how it made me sweaty, hated the hills, and hated the fact that my parents would drag me through the streets of our neighborhood to run “for fun.” Running wasn’t fun.

It was a self-induced death march that I was unfortunate enough to have to endure in the name of family bonding. Well, that’s how I saw it as a moody teenage girl anyways. Which, was when my mom and brother suggested I run cross-country my freshman year of high school, I was skeptical. Why would I purposely want to run long distances multiple days a week? How is running a sport?

But, because I had decided not to cheer and lacrosse try-outs weren’t until the spring, I didn’t have many options for fall sports. So on August 1, 2006, I laced up my running shoes and reported for practice.

Right away I knew cross-country would be like nothing I had ever experienced.

First off, running is hard. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect there to be such an exact, and often painful, science to running hills or timing splits. Second off, and most importantly, I had coaches who believed in me.

Over the next four years, Coaches Cathi Monk and Christine Dahlhauser would teach me to not only have a love for running, but to have a love for myself. These two incredible women pushed me harder than I had ever been pushed.

They didn’t expect greatness, but they did expect that I would put in my greatest effort to be better than I was the day before. Most days I would do my best, but there were definitely practices and races that I just wasn’t feeling it. Each had an incredibly distinct voice and more than once I heard “Madi Lake, what the heck are you doing? I know you can do better than that!” from across the course. At that moment, the very moment I thought I would rather keel over than run harder, I would close my eyes and dig deeper, somehow finding strength that I didn’t even know I had.

They taught me to be a hill seeker, and that the most important moments in life happen on a “hill.”

While most runners hate hills, hills Coach D reminded me, give you the opportunity to prove to yourself (and others) how strong you really are. There is nothing more satisfying than basking in the descent after conquering a particularly steep hill. They taught me that the last .1 is just as important as the first 100 meters. In cross -country, it is the scores of the top seven runners that makes up the team’s final score, with the lowest team score winning the entire meet.

Therefore, even though you were running your own race, you were really running for six other people. You need to finish your race just as strong as it started, no matter how tired, or downtrodden you might feel.

You must always finish the race. You must always fight the good fight.

Finally, they showed me what it was like to be something larger than myself. At the end of my freshman season, Coach Monk handed me a single chain link. “This link represents our team,” she said. “As the newest members, you are our newest links. Right now they are shiny, but with age, they will dull. This is like a team – it’s easy to be excited when things are “shiny” but much harder when they’re dull. We are only as strong as all of us together and although it might be hard, there isn’t anything that can break us.” Being a link can sometimes be hard, but it’s always worth it in the end.

I am a far cry from the girl I was at 13 – instead I am strong, confident, and determined to succeed.

Because of these women, I am a life long runner, and appreciate what running can do for the soul. It is because of Cathi Monk that I know I can push myself without breaking, and that I’m stronger than I think I am.

It is because of Coach D that I have learned the importance of never giving up and to always have faith, no matter the circumstances. It is because of these two women and their wisdom, grace, and strength that I am who I am today, and for that, I could not be more thankful.

(Written by Denna Babul)

My mother-in-law’s name is Joan. She is sixty-three years old and dying prematurely from ALS.

She is in the final stages of this relentless disease which has taken away, among many other things, the usage of her loving arms and kind hands, the ability to voice her love for us beyond a labored whisper on her rare “good” days, her ferocious dignity to live out her days mothering us instead of us taking care of her, and my time to tell her how I feel.

Her final months are upon us, and although I am a Registered Nurse and have counseled many people through grief, I am finding it nearly impossible to begin my own grieving process. As a nurse, I learned how to put on a tough exterior to make it through the difficult days. I find myself using the same tactics to make it through the process of losing my mother-in-law.

On the outside, I act like, “I got this,” yet on the inside, I am petrified of losing her. In the past two years I have tried to avoid what is inevitably going to happen by carrying on as though she had not been diagnosed with a terminal disease.

I don’t want to imagine a life without her.

I want my children to be influenced by the person she is and not the person she was . . . and I don’t want my husband to lose his mother.

When we were told of her advanced directive wishes, I caught myself going, yet again, into nurse mode. I was too busy making sure everyone else understood what her wishes meant to really absorb my own feelings. Riddled with frustration, I have watched on the sidelines as her body has wilted away knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop the disease’s progression.

I have held my husband during the night as he is consumed with grief and put on a smile during the day, so our sensitive daughter does not pick up on our pain and try to carry it on her little back. I have tried to do my best as a nurse, a wife and a mother, but I wonder; how have I done as her daughter–in-law? Does she know how much I love her? Have I made her as proud of me as I am of her?

As her time with us is dwindling, I feel in writing this eulogy and seeing it in print, it will in some way imprint my feelings into her heart. I hope my words can do her justice.

Eulogy for my Mother-In-Law, Joan

My first assessment of Joan was that she was a simple, sweet woman who was happy . . . but I couldn’t help but think she must want more out of life. Boy was I wrong! She knew exactly what she wanted!

It was hard for me to understand a woman who seemed to live her life for everyone else but herself. It seemed like a life that still focused on being a mother to her adult children could be a life of missed opportunities.

I could not fathom how watching sports with her boys day in and day out could be enjoyable. I did not understand how tending to her husband’s every need could fulfill her own needs. I couldn’t grasp how coming to her son’s aid anytime he asked – even if this meant driving nine hours to cook his favorite meal – did not make her feel taken advantage of every once in awhile.

It took me longer than I want to admit to understand just how special Joan was. The turning point was when I realized that I, too, was special to her.

As soon as I married her son, Joan became everything to me that I never knew I needed.

She was there after my first miscarriage as well as the two that followed. She was there to nurse me after my spine surgery when both my mom and husband needed to go back to work. She was there after the birth of my daughter, pulling her bassinet into her room, so I could get the sleep I needed to heal.

In some ways I regressed when she was around, defaulting to her also mothering me and taking care of my family when life had gotten too hard or too busy. She never once complained. I have never met a more selfless person.

Joan was my angel on Earth. All she wanted to do was give and never receive. For her, the gift of truly giving to others is what fed her beautiful soul. In time, I realized Joan’s reason for living was to be a mother and a grandmother. It was her true calling, and all she ever really wanted.

I was the one who needed to learn from her. I was the one going ninety miles an hour through life never really stopping to enjoy what was right in front of me: my family.

Joan has made me a better mother, a more conscientious wife and friend. Through her I have learned to give more freely and more often with ease. It is because of her example that I will pass on to my children just how special it is to be a mother.