Welcome to the Personal Fundraising Page of Brenda Adkins

Last August, I had the honor of walking with 1,399 other people in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness Walk. It was an amazing 20 mile walk, a walk that reaffirmed my life. It was a walk that helped me understand why I’m still here.

When I returned home, someone asked me, “When are you going to stop?”. I was confused; I had no idea what they were talking about. At my puzzled look, she continued, “This suicide stuff. When are you going to just stop?”. My answer then is the same as it is now. When there are no more suicides. When no other parent has to live my life mare. When our health care system recognizes mental illness for what it is….an illness….and offers parity in health care. When the stigma goes away, and we realize that those we are burying to suicide are not the worst of the worst. That’s a misnomer, a stereotype. We are burying the best of the best. That’s when I’ll stop…..when we stop burying our future to a disease called suicide.

Look at my sons. Jason and Rick. Rick and Jason. Where do you even begin to tell the story of two wonderful, perfect red-headed boys?

They were born to run, born to live out loud. They came six weeks early, in a hurry to start on this journey we call “life”. The nurses tried to put them in separate warmers; they wailed. Once they put them together in one warmer, they immediately stopped crying. They tried wrapping them tightly in blankets, the way you wrap a newborn. Not my newborns. They managed to wriggle out of those blankets. They never wanted to be constrained. They wanted to move, to run, to laugh, to live.

They had their own language, from infancy until death. They finished each others sentences. When they were toddlers, they would have a “conversation”. One would distract me, and the other would get into some kind of mischief… like pouring a gallon of Crisco oil on the kitchen floor to “ice kate”. It was hard to be angry with them, because they had the most wonderful smiles and giggles. Most of the time, I just had to laugh….and clean up the mess.

Inseparable. Yin and Yang. So alike, yet so very different. Jason was loud, boisterous, charming, charismatic. He was usually the center of attention wherever he was, not just because of his head full of red curls, but because of his personality. He was a born leader. My Rick was much quieter, more introspective. He didn’t like the spotlight…..and he followed wherever Jason led. They graduated from college one quarter apart, so they could both be first in the class.

Somewhere along this crazy zig-zag called life, the zigged, when what they should have done was zag. Jason, Rick and cocaine became Very Close Personal Friends. When J couldn’t kick the coke, he ended his life, all alone in a Motel 6. He wanted to be sure, so he took 196 sleeping pills. As I’ve told you before, Jason never was one for half measures.

Rick was the elder of the two, but Jason was very much the big brother. Rick tried to live without his “big bro”. He kicked the drugs, fell in love, planned a life. Then Elizabeth broke his heart, and he couldn’t cope anymore. He thought that his life was over. So, as he’d done all his life, he followed his big brother. He died from a sleeping pill overdose all alone by a river in Georgia. It took eight days to find his body.

If suicide can take my sons, it can take anyone. Silence is NOT always golden. Please help me break the silence.

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