The dark days of winter can be a very lonely time and many troubled souls are tempted to end their pain and suffereing by completing suicide.  If you are suicidal, please reconsider and seek the  help of a loved one or friend.  If you don't know who to call,  please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 800 273-TALK now!!  Don't give up - your life is precious and worth fighting for!  One phone call can save your life.  Please call now!!!!

About Jason

Jason was born at 8:45 pm on August 24, 1972 in Lompoc, CA.  He weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.  With a head full of reddish blonde hair and a scream that could be heard throughout the neighborhood at all hours of day and night, Jason let his presence be known to the world.  He was a little colicky and his appetite was insatiable.  By the time Jason was 3 months old, he weighed 16 lbs and by 4 months he cut his first 2 teeth.  He walked and talked before his first birthday and gave new meaning to the terrible twos. 

Jason loved to push buttons of all sorts; lights, fans, stereos, etc., and he was especially good at pushing mine.  He loved to swing on his bedroom door early in the morning as a wake-up call to his father and me. 

When he was almost three, Jason took our neighbor's baby, in his  stroller, down to the local convenience store at the end of our road.  Jason then helped himself to some candy, which was quickly detected by the clerk on duty.  When I arrived home from work that evening, the local sheriff was just getting Jason and the baby out of the back seat of his car.  Too young for juvenile detention, and old enough to learn a very important lesson, I took him to see the grocer the next day to apologize and pay for the candy he took.  It was the beginning of one of the many life's lessons Jason would have to learn the hard way.   

His father and I divorced in 1978.  During the years that followed, Jason was in and out of trouble at school and his therapy was not working for him.  At age 10 he moved with his father, stepmother  and half siblings to Florida.  When his fathers second marriage ended in divorce, I remember Jason commenting to me that he had driven another one off.  Although I assured him it wasn't his fault, he wasn't convinced.  By his fathers third marriage, Jason was in his early teens and had developed a lot of anger and resentment towards his mother figures.   

Although he and I had resolved most of our issues and maintained a sometimes strained but mostly close long distance relationship over the years, Jason lived with more pain than anyone who knew and loved him could imagine.  On his final visit to New Jersey, he confided in me some of his most haunting memories and disappointments from his childhood and of his longtime struggle with alcohol.  He had quit drinking 2 weeks before he came to visit, yet when I begged him to get help, he assured me he could do it on his own.  One year and two months to the day of that conversation, without warning or note, Jason ended his life to suicide on June 30, 2006.   One gunshot wound to the head ended the life of my only child and changed the lives of his many loved ones forever.

Besides his families, Jason had a lot of friends that loved him dearly.  At his memorial service I was comforted by some of the heartfelt eulogies of his closest friends.  One said he was a good and moral man. He loved to laugh.  He loved life.  He loved to ride his motorcycle.  He loved to play guitar, but would never finish a song.  He was a great guitar player.  He was a great auto salesman.  He knew people and could size up anyone in a minute. 

But one thing one of his best friends' said that will forever break my heart was that all Jason ever wanted was to find a good woman that wasn't f#%*ed up in the head!  Sadly, Jason never found her.  Could it be he was looking for the idea of a woman that didn't exist - confused by his perception of the mother that he wished he'd had - not this long distance mother that was his emotional lifeline and temporary escape from his tormented existence?   

Why Jason chose to end his life in such a tragic and unimaginable way, only he knows.  But, for this heartbroken mother, life will never be the same. 

I now share his story with the world in hopes of spreading suicide awareness and prevention.  Not one more person should have to suffer alone or end their life in such a horrific way.  Not one more person should have to suffer the loss of a child or loved one to suicide.  My voice is just one of millions of suicide survivors, but it is all I have left to offer in Jason's memory.  Please spread the word!  

Jason is free now, and he now knows how much we all love and miss him. 

 

 

 

In this photo taken in the spring of 1976 in our front yard in Flynn Springs, CA, Jason looked so tiny compared to my best friend Tiki.  Having been abused as a filly, Tiki did not much care for men, but she was as gentle as coueld be with Jason and me.  Jason loved to ride her from the time he was three and was taking the reins before his fourth birthday.

Tiki was my faithful companion and protector the last two years we lived in CA, and it was our routine to take rides up on the fire trails in the mountains behind our tiny 1/2 acre ranchette while Jason was at Montessori school or helping his dad with manly chores.  In the wilderness Tiki and I would often come face to face with snakes, scorpions and tarantulas and the odd goat eating a tin can.  She would snort and side step and sometimes even rear up.  But once the danger had passed, she would "stand there" and enjoy the beauty of the the valley below.