Monopoly Time

This picture was taken 3 years ago on April 24th, 2020, it still feels like yesterday.

Rhy: I’m not really into board games

Also Rhy: Let’s GOOOO Monopoly time!

I can’t believe it’s been 2 years and a few days since you’ve been gone. Since I heard your voice boom across these walls, your laugh make my day.

Today and everyday hug the ones you love. Keep them close. Remind them a million billion times they’re loved, important, and that nothing challenging is permanent. Recovery is possible.

My life is now a walking example of two sides of a story, one of loss and one of recovery. I’m still recovering. I wasn’t prepared when I started Rhy’s Above ~22 months to share these stories. I just wanted the pain to end. For this community to heal. To stop my phone from ringing about another loss, a preventable loss to death by suicide.

But it’s two years since I lost my son Rhyland, and the numbers continue to climb. Two years and such little progress made to educate, normalize, and provide resources.

I’ve spent the better part of these two years working with lawmakers and officials attempting to impact change and to say the progress is slow would be an incredible understatement.

So while we won’t give up on those avenues, we are refocusing on what we can provide regardless to what happens with schools or politics.

Stay with us, we’re learning as we go. I was not prepared to be a mother without her son, grieving while navigating a demanding career, building a nonprofit, and learning first how to survive and then begin to thrive.

So if you’ve read this far, I want you to know you matter to me. Everyday, if we’ve met or not. You matter. And I’m doing this for any and every one who loves at least 5 people. Because the numbers are 1 in 5 at risk. And we all could use more tools to connect, to support one another, to ease the difficult conversations by practicing them. To truly prevent suicide by understanding it, talking about it, and opening the road to healing by taking down barriers.

I guess I had a lot to say tonight. Thanks for always inspiring me Rhy, I love you forever.