"Suicide takes a walk"

Suicide takes a walk

Out of the Darkness events raise awareness, provide community

By ERIC WADE

Voice Correspondent

            Chase Edwards was an active, charismatic and enthusiastic teenager. He served on the student council. He played on a traveling soccer team. He was intensely interested in art, sketching his heroes and idols. He freehanded what was on his mind, but he does none of that now.

             Chase loved the Detroit Red Wings. He drew pictures of players. He had collectables and figurines. Chase and his dad, Jeff, traveled from their home in Brighton to the Hockey Hall of Fame Toronto in 2002 to see the Stanley Cup – which Detroit won that year.

What Chase didn’t know was that when they were in Toronto his father had gotten tickets for that night’s game. Chase wore his Red Wings’ jersey to the game, and before the game he managed to get some of the players to sign it.

The next morning, they went to the hotel where the Red Wings stayed. They were in luck. As they arrived, the players were getting ready to board the bus to the airport back to Detroit. Chase and his dad managed to get autographs from every member of the team.

            Jeff Edwards loves to tell those stories about his son. He has to because Chase cannot. He has to because it helps Jeff to heal. He has to because Chase attempted suicide on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2003, and died on March 3, after his parents made the unthinkable decision to remove him from life support. He was 12.

Jeff tells his story to help others better understand what the signs are, and he tells his story in hopes that he can prevent other parents from having to look back and wonder what it was they didn’t notice, and why.

To his parents Chase’s drawings showed potential for a future in art. Chase drew sketches of his idols. He would draw anywhere he went.

            “He would always have a sketchpad with him,” Jeff recalls. “Even when he would go Up North to the family cabin, he would draw.”

            Like Jeff, those left behind, devastated parents, siblings and friends, tell stories like these at support groups, at charities and memorials and at awareness-raising events like “Out of the Darkness,” a community walk held at Kensington Metro Park in Milford on Sept. 22. They tell the stories to heal – and to make others aware.

            A normal boy by all accounts, Noah Miller, 13, a seventh-grader from Westland, loved to play baseball and hoped to try out for track. He also loved to hunt.

The year before his death, Noah’s Little League team won the league championship, and he managed to get in some hunting with his family.  Noah and his stepbrother, Austin Clark, loved playing pranks on people at the mall – which sometimes resulted in security inviting them to leave.

Noah also loved the Marines.

            “From the minute he could say the word Marine, he wanted to be one,” Kelly Miller, Noah’s mother, said.

            Noah drew sketches of tanks, and warplanes, and he could name every piece of military equipment he saw. He went to recruiters for posters to hang in his bedroom, and thought about whether he wanted to go to college and earn a degree first so he could join the military service as an officer.

            Kelly Hale, 43, of Taylor, loved everything outdoors. She would visit Kensington Metro Park to bike or roller blade often, and she took her nieces there whenever she could. She was the type of person who would stop her car in the road get out to help an elderly couple cross.

            “She was unforgettable. She would meet people, and they would remember her for life,” Kari Hale, Kelly’s sister said.

            Kelly was willing to help anyone.

            “When a neighbor of Kelly’s was sick, she took care of him for a long time, without a thought,” Kimberley Pellegrino, Kelly’s sister said.

            That’s why it shocked so many when Kelly took her own life, too.

            What Chase, Noah, Kelly and thousands of others have in common is that they were sick and needed help. And those who loved them tragically missed the signs – but they hope to stop others from missing it, too, by spreading awareness.

            Out of the Darkness events are community walks held throughout the United States and hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The events are meant to raise funds for prevention, and to provide community for the survivors.  

            Most victims of suicide show signs of depression before they die, the AFSP said.

            Noah started eating less, and sleeping more. He started dating someone and started giving personal belongs to her.

            “That’s one of the signs, they start giving away their personal belongings,” Kelly Miller said.

            Noah also showed an increase in happiness, which is another sign that someone is about to die of suicide, Miller said.

            Kelly Hale was sad, but what compounded the symptoms was that she was injured. Because of the injuries and the pain medication, Kelly couldn’t be as active as she wished.

            “She was sad because she couldn’t do the things she loved to do anymore,” Sandry Hale, Kelly’s mother, said.

              At the time leading up to their son’s death, Jeff and Laura Edwards had no idea that something was wrong. In hindsight, they now see the warning signs. Chase, too, was showing signs of depression. He cleaned his room immaculately before he died. He was happy, almost as if he was at peace with his decision.

The Edwards now know the signs, and say they wish they had another chance to get Chase the help he desperately needed.

            “My son was sick and undiagnosed,” Jeff said, “and he died.”