Please Read…This May Just Change Your Life
Good evening!
As most of my friends know, teen suicide prevention, and suicide prevention in general, is extremely important to me. When an opportunity arises for me to address this issue, and to possibly make a difference in someone’s life, I take it. Below you will find a message from a good friend of mine who dealt with a very tragic loss a year ago. Please take the time to read his message, along with his mother’s. It just may make a difference in your life or someone else’s.
If you are reading this blog post and are having suicidal thoughts, please visit SuicideHotlines.com to find help in your area. Please remember, you’re never alone. I know at times it may feel that way, but there are people out there who do love and care about you, you just need to let them in. Please, don’t think that suicide is the only way out.
Thank you!
PLEASE READ!
IF YOU KNEW KENNY OR KNEW HIM THRU ME,THEN TAKE A SECOND OUT OF YOUR DAY TO THINK ABOUT HIM OR POUR A DRINK OUT FOR HIM OR BLOW ONE IN THE AIR FOR HIM OR PLAY HIS FAVORITE SONG.
THE WORLD AIN’T THE SAME WITHOUT YOU BRO! WE MISS AND LOVE YOU!
THIS IS A LETTER THAT MY MOM WROTE AND SENT TO ME TO ASK ME TO SEND OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS I CAN. I WANTED TO WAIT UNTIL TODAY TO SEND THIS. THIS WORLD IS CRAZY SOMETIMES A FEW MONTHS AGO MY I ALMOST LOST MY MOM AND MY NEPHEW ONE OF KENNY‘S SONS IN A FIRE. I DON’T KNOW HOW I WOULD HAVE DELT WITH THAT BEING THAT I LOST MY DAD IN A FIRE TOO IN 1996.
I WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY THAT’S BEEN BY MY SIDE TO HELP HOLD ME UP THIS PAST YEAR. THERE HASN’T BEEN ONE DAY THAT I HAVEN‘T THOUGHT ABOUT KENNY.
HERE IS MY MOTHER’S LETTER:
Message From a Mother’s Broken Heart
This letter took me one year to write. I believed and hoped that with time it would be easier to write, but one year ago I lost my son and I have to say it’s not any easier to write now than when it happened. I have so much to say, to tell the world about a young man, who had so much to live for, but who didn’t know how to forgive himself and he felt escaping life was the only way he could tell everyone how sorry he was.
What I want to say to everyone who will take the time to read my message is; don’t take for granted that your loved one will always be here. It doesn’t matter if you have a disagreement with the person you love. It’s o.k. to be angry at them, but make sure you also let them know I STILL LOVE YOU, because we all make mistakes.
I just want to tell you a little about my story; the main message of my story is to TREAT others the way you would want to be TREATED, in everything you do in life. Kenneth, my son shot himself in the chest and died in his car in my arms because he couldn’t forgive himself. All the reasons behind this is another story for another time. When the ambulance got there, they asked me to step out of the car, and they spent all of 2 minutes with my son. They got out of his car, took their plastic gloves off and proceeded to go back to their truck. I’d like to mention it wasn’t an obvious thing what had happen; when I got there I didn’t realize what had happened for several minutes. I started yelling to them,” please Mister, please help my son”, to that I received no answer, “please Mr. please don’t walk away”. For I saw them do nothing, they didn’t get any reviving machines or equipment out of their truck to try to revive my son, they spent all of 2 minutes in the car with him and walked away, “Please Mr. please help my son!” but there was no help for my son. I wasn’t allowed to go back in the car to hold him one last time. I waited outside the car crying for over 2 hours looking at my son, still hoping and praying desperately for a miracle to happen and to see some kind of movement from him. I kept asking everybody, please try to help him, please don’t give up, but no one tried. I waited for the police to come to declare a crime scene. I watched as my son’s body lay in his car for over 2 hours, until the coroner came to officially declare him, dead. I cried, angry at them, angry at God, angry at myself, how can this be happening, how can this be real. I just saw him earlier that evening dropping his kids off and when I asked him, where he was going, he said to me “mom I’ll be right back”, little could I have known those would be the last words I would ever hear from him. My son was 6’1” tall, a body builder in perfect health and one of the most handsome men ever. When the police arrived they showed a little more compassion and called the Chaplin, who tried to be as helpful as she could, comforting my daughter-in-law and me.
The scenario goes on till they took my son out of his car almost 3 hours later and I was then allowed to kiss him and say my last good bye to him.
There is a point to my story, it is much more than just telling you how my son died, it wasn’t until I had to experience such horror that the reality of how we as people, treat each other became very real to me. The moral of my story is to treat people the way you would want to be treated in everything you do in this life. We all deserve that, no one should be treated less because you never know when one day it may be your child or loved one.
This part I know may read as if I’m trying to place blame but that is not what I’m doing, just please continue to read and try to follow what I’m trying to say to you.
My son sat in his car in a parking lot, at a place, which is said to have 24-hour security and surveillance. A place where you are suppose to have a parking permit to park there, yet he had no parking permit and no one ever approached him to ask him what was he doing there, or to move his car. He just got to sit in his car and decide that the world was better off without him. What if the security personnel really did their job that day, I may not be writing this story.
I can’t help but think, what if this had happened to one of the ambulance people’s child or loved one, I wonder if they would have spent only 2 minutes trying to revive him. I can’t believe that they wouldn’t have tired everything possible to try to revive him before giving up so soon.
What if it were your son?
We were told by coroner’s office that because they were told it was a suicide they did not feel the need to perform a detailed autopsy report. Wouldn’t you want to know every detail and not hear a bunch of assumptions if it were your child? Wouldn’t you want to make sure that there was no foul play involved in his death? I say just do your job to its best each and every time; treat every case you get as if it were your loved one.
Weeks later I tried to get the police report, and to get my son’s belonging from the coroner, which I am sad to say I was never able to get. I was told to hire a lawyer to get a subpoena in order to get the police report. The coroner said they didn’t have his belongings, no one knew where his things were. After going to the different places to get my son’s belongings and the police report it finally became apparent to me I wasn’t going to get these things and I finally gave up.
What if this was your child, how would you feel?
Aside from all of these things I know I’m suppose to just grieve and get over it, but really what if this happened to you and it was your child, wouldn’t you want everything possible to be done in each and every situation? Why then should I have to be satisfied with the poor uncaring way that my son was treated as well as my family?
Kenneth Fredrick Fuller was an extremely important person in our lives and we shall never forget him. I wish no one has to experience the cold, uncaring treatment my family and I have had to endure.
It’s been a year and I have to get this message out, the message is to – TREAT OTHERS LIKE YOU WOULD WANT AND EXPECT TO BE TREATED, IN EVERYTHING YOU DO IN THIS LIFE. Do your best or don’t do it at all. And if you are a person who feels as my Kenny did, that the world is better off without you, please, please know that you make a difference in someone’s life. Yes you make mistakes and yes you may feel no one will even miss you or notice that you are gone, but it’s a lie.
Someone will notice and you not being here will change someone’s entire world, there is a reason you are here, please find that reason, take it from me and my entire family – you will be missed! I now know the answer to the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The answer is YES!
Kenneth Fredrick Fuller
March 20, 1976 – October 6, 2007
My son, I wish you understood, you were not a mess up, you just made mistakes like all of us do. The world isn’t a better place without you, you have left a very large empty hole in the world and in our hearts, a hole that no one will ever be able to fill. You thought everyone would be better off without you, you were wrong, we will NEVER be better off without you, you are and always will be apart of us. You were a GREAT man to us, yes you made mistakes, yes you were not perfect, but neither are we. You were the best son a mother could ever have; you were also a loved brother, husband, father, grandson, uncle, nephew, cousin and friend. It may have been a year ago, but to us, it was yesterday.
Kenneth, May You Find peace
Mom
