Carrying the Weight of Silence: Walking a Path from Grief to Community

My world changed forever on June 1, 2015, when I lost my dear friend Johnnie to suicide. I had spoken with him only three days earlier, and had hugged him just two weeks before, at my 40th birthday party. Then, in the middle of an ordinary morning, I received the kind of news that divides life into a before and an after.

Everything around me kept moving, but on the inside, it felt like time stood still. In the weeks that followed, I moved through each day in a fog, searching for a way to understand how someone who had filled 24 years of my life could suddenly be gone. Johnnie was family –– not by blood, but by every laugh we shared, every honest conversation we took part in, every fierce act of loyalty toward each other, and every strong hug that made the world feel safer. Johnnie’s absence left a silence I did not know how to carry.

A few months after Johnnie died, I was invited to walk in his memory at the American Foundation for Suicide’s Out of the Darkness Community Walk being held in Rhode Island.

I arrived carrying grief that felt far too heavy for one person, unsure whether I would be able to take even the first step. Yet as I looked around, I saw people who clearly understood without needing an explanation. They knew what it meant to miss someone with your whole heart and still choose to keep moving forward. Attending that first Community Walk did not take away my pain, but gave me something I had not felt since losing Johnnie: the comfort of knowing I was not alone. Year after year, I have returned to the event to walk with Johnnie’s name in my heart. Each step is for him: for the life he lived; for all other survivors of suicide loss; and for every person who needs to know that their own life matters.

What began as a way to survive my own grief slowly became a promise: I would keep showing up, keep speaking up, and keep volunteering for this cause, so that fewer families and friends may experience this kind of loss.

Since 2015, my involvement with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has grown from participating in Out of the Darkness Walks to additionally include playing a role in community outreach, spreading AFSP’s education programs throughout our area, and participating in public-policy advocacy. I have helped share AFSP’s mission and Talk Saves Lives education in my community; supported awareness, fundraising, and support activities for loss survivors; taken part in State Capitol Day and AFSP’s federal advocacy efforts; and built relationships with elected officials so that our collected lived experience remains present in decisions about mental health and suicide prevention. Specifically, I have advocated for a strong crisis-response system and sustainable 988 funding in Rhode Island; mental health education for students; improved access to care and telehealth; suicide-prevention funding and research; and mental health protections for first responders. Most recently, I helped support and prepare for Rhode Island’s 2026 Advocacy Action Day. Every conversation, every meeting, and every request for change carries the same hope: that someone in pain will be reached before it is too late.

AFSP has taught me that community is not simply something we find: it is something we build for one another, especially in the moments when hope feels hardest to reach. I find community on display in volunteers who understand that grief does not follow a timeline; in loss survivors willing to speak a loved one’s name; in advocates being brave and open enough to turn heartbreak into action; and in every person who pauses long enough to truly listen.

I create community by sharing Johnnie’s story; inviting friends and family to walk beside me; reaching into my own networks with resources and compassion; and by reminding people that asking for help is an act of courage.

Eleven years later, I still miss Johnnie in ways that can be both quiet and overwhelming. There are still moments occasionally when the loss feels as close as yesterday. But I am no longer standing still inside that grief. I carry my friend forward: in every step, every conversation, every hand I hold, and every effort to make hope easier to find. This community has helped me turn sorrow into service, and love into action. As long as I am able, I will keep speaking Johnnie’s name, and working toward a world where no one has to face their darkest moment alone.