It’s that time again! Time to get registered to walk to prevent suicide.

Suicide is not something that anyone likes to talk about. It makes people uncomfortable. But not talking about it will not make it go away. It happens everywhere. It can happen to anyone, in any social circle, in any family, any church group, any school group, anywhere. It happens to rich families and poor families. It happens to popular kids and the kids that don’t have many friends. It happens to the man living on the street or the man that is a Christian and active in church. It happens everywhere.

So far we have a few teams that have already formed in memory of several different lives that have been lost to suicide.  Many different families have been touched by this tragedy, and I ask that the community keep all these families in your thoughts and prayers.

Generally speaking, when a suicide happens, the families and friends of those that are gone are taken completely by surprise.  There are exceptions to this, but in general people had no idea just how bad things were for someone. This is one of the reasons that raising money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is so important. A portion of it is used for research into depression awareness.

As we raise more and more money in our area, the plan is to have a local support group so that we don’t have to travel to surrounding cities to get help from others that are experiencing the same thing.  Sadly, there are plenty of people walking in these shoes right here in the Miss-Lou and we need to help each other. So many different families have been affected by suicide.  Children have been lost. Spouses have been lost. Parents have been lost. Friends have been lost.

This will be the third year that one of the nationwide Out of the Darkness Community Walks will be in our area. However, this year it will be at the Vidalia Riverfront. The date is Saturday, Nov. 13. Check-in is at 9 a.m.

Please don’t forget to actually register at the official Web site at www.outofthedarkness.org if you plan to attend or even think you might attend. Once you have registered there and formed a team or joined an existing team, there are great tools on that Web site to use in order to get the word out about this event.

Thanks so much to everyone that is already participating.

Erin Sessions Frith

local event coordinator for Out of the Darkness (Daughter to James Benjamin Sessions who was lost to suicide on 04/09/02)