#antisuicideday

In middle school I was an awkward, quiet choir child who my 8th grade year was placed next to the newest choir member, a 7th grade hyper, crazy little boy named Amulek. Every year up until he left choir my junior year of high school our choir director placed us side by side in every choir. He was like everyone’s little brother, annoying but we all loved him…and he loved messing with all of us. After he left choir, I saw him in the halls every once and a while but I didn’t get to talk to him again until my senior year Snowflake Ball at the high school…something had changed…gone was the goofy smile and the joking nature…gone was the boy who performed the spongebob tv show-esque faux make-out with himself in front of the entire BHMS choir during a group performance project. I made the mistake of just assuming he had matured, like all of us who had the joy sucked out by the stress of SATs, TAKS Tests, & College entrance exams.

I was wrong…very wrong…

March 4, 2013 Amulek committed suicide in his bedroom at home sending shock waves through our school of roughly 1,200 students.

After Amulek over a period of 3 years the suicides in our school would total 3 students gone without obvious causes, but as we as a student body we all realized a few of us each noticed changes in those students, but we didn’t realize what was really happening until Facebook would light up late at night as the ambulance would fly up the road through cow pastures headed towards one of our four little towns more than likely flying by the same high school where the next day we would congregate around the flagpole and ask “why?” Those people I never saw shed a tear broke down, fell to their knees, and cried at that flag pole the next day.

There is a lesson to this story…never dismiss any signs that could be suicide because you won’t have another chance to help before they’re gone. Here on the hill we’ve learned this the hard way loosing way too many to suicide way too fast. Please don’t your community go through what we’ve gone through. 

We’re sorry Amulek, Sydni, & Levi…we didn’t know…we just didn’t know.

…Tragic accidents would bring the death toll to roughly half a dozen students, never forget to tell people how much you love them and how much they matter…you never know when you’ll wake up to the sound of the ambulance racing up your main street as the news flashes through social media that your community has lost someone far to young to go.

Amulek Stone September 15, 1995-March 4, 2013 (17)

Sydni Lewis August 19, 1996-August 8, 2013 (16)