Suicide Prevention Talk

 Wow---back from suicide prevention week on Aberdeen Proving Ground military post.  The first speaker, Tammy Woodard who works at the official suicide office, spoke about the worth of people.  She had a $20.00 brand new bill.  Asked who wanted it?  Then wrinkled, folded, stepped on it, smashed it up, now who wants it?  Still worth $20.00.  Good visual example.  She had a great power point with risks, danger signs to look for, resources (I want to take a photo of that slide on Friday, when she repeats her talk, and we do our 2nd one).  She threw the bill out into the audience, and Amy Landbeck Snyder caught it with her left hand!

John spoke first, then we showed Emma slideshow with Maryland State Boychoir singing, then me.  These are my notes, mostly followed, or paused and came back and read things.  I didn't know how emotional it would be, so I needed complete sentences to read, just in case...

1.  There are a lot of good memories in those photos.  

Thank you for listening so respectfully to my husband. 

I appreciate what Tammy said, grateful to be here today.  Max's youngest sister and brother are here, Roxie Jane & Sam, and his grandparents, John & Sandy Landbeck and one of his aunts, Amy Snyder.  Thank you for being here today, all of you.

2.  Bodies are precious gifts.  After Max was hit by the train they sent his body to Baltimore for autopsy and investigation.  When the funeral home picked him up, washed his hair & beard, let us come see him and say goodbye.  The funeral home pulled out one of his arms so we could hold his hand, hand a towel over the right side of his face and warned us to leave it in place and not move it.  I stroked his cheek, kissed my son, ran my fingers through his hair that was never that soft and full bodied in life. When your baby is born, you count all his toes, and fingers, make sure he is all there.  I touched his feet through the body bag, made sure he was all there by feel.

I gave him life.   We helped create that body, and it hurt me when he abused it, smoking pot, getting high, he picked up cigarette smoking in rehab, tripping out is scary---not just the crazy things he would say and talk about seeing.  

His self-medicating took him away from me.  Drugs hurt you.  They hurt my son.  

Suicide affects the whole family--siblings, cousins, we all miss him.  And we need to keep talking about him. 

Our youngest daughter, Roxie, was able to go to a grief camp with other children who lost a loved one recently.  They had a volcano room, where they could rip apart magazines, pound pool noodles against the wall, scream if they needed to, just to release the angry feelings that come.  Parents talk, but we need to remember the children that are affected by the suicide or death, too.

I have become a SOBRIETY ACTIVIST to try and help other parents know what to do when their children choose to use drugs.

3.  People ask all the time if DEFIANCE really is his middle name--and yes, it is.  Our firstborn son inherited the John Stewart Landbeck IV name of his great grandfather. 

Defiance=openly resist or refuse to obey

-not a sy-fy game, custom bolt rifle company

-The show takes place in the future on a radically transformed Earth containing new species, some having arrived from space,

The story begins in the year 2046. re-built ruins of St. Louis.  ALIENS = VOTANS

-Fort Defiance is a restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn,

 -Defiance College, OHIO yellowjacket mascot, -and a town in Missouri, beer company in Hays, Kansas,

We needed a good, strong name for son #2.  Nothing whimpy.  He needed a strong name, with meaning!  We gave him Defiance as a middle name with the prayer that he would defy the bad stuff in the world and that he would stand up for what is real and true.  We wanted him to fight for goodness. 

I don't know everything our son was feeling;  I have read through his journals and papers he kept carefully in a traveling file folder as he went from rehab and place to place.  Some of his struggles included worries about money & jobs, his love life and lack of confidence worrying that he was ugly, questions about God and where he fit into the world.  A lot of things we all have to deal with.

4.  Everyone feels self-doubts and insecurities, or trying to wade through grief or trauma, sadness, disappointments, depression to some degree.  That is normal part of life. 

I absolutely know that if I had talked more, during tough times, I would have been better off emotionally--in high school, struggling with postpartum depression…

FIND someone who will listen to you, and TALK and be a better listener!  A conversation can change your life!  Reach outside of your security zone, help someone, and be better at asking for help. 

5.  T-shirts are kind of a thing in our family.  When Max died he had no $ in bank, he had lost a lot of his possessions, but he still had some really cool t-shirts.  His 5 siblings divided them up, and I made a quilt for each of them, so they could all have a Max hug anytime they needed one.  They still smell like him.  (show quilt)  They opened them up at Christmas, and we had a lot of moments of silence, all wrote letters, what we would say to him and want him to know. 

This is a Defiance t-shirt, homemade!  We make these t-shirts with a stencil in our kitchen, using bleach, and then quickly rinse in vinegar to stop the bleaching process. 

You can show DEFIANCE of the complacency and acceptance of drugs, defy the people who can't remember how many inhibitions they let go of while under the influence.  Rebel against drowning your sorrows, be bold in being sober, challenge the drug humor, revolt against smoking pot.  Confront society's fear of talking about suicide.  THIS is what this t-shirt means to me. 

We have one for each of you today.  Thank you.

Free T-shirts with a Promise & Committment to be Safe & Sober

Best news ever:  One of my daily seminary early morning Bible School students reported seeing someone wearing a Defiance t-shirt at his school, two days after our presentation there!  I asked my student if he talked to him, said anything, or if he would recognize the student again to talk to him about sobriety, and explain he has a matching shirt....?

As part of my grocery budget $ I buy 100% cotton dark t-shirts to bleach through my stencil.  Thanks to my sister Laurajane for cool idea!  Below is a t-shirt gift she made.

Laurajane used nametag sticky rectangles to cut out letters and bleached around.

After spraying bleach--which will continue to bleach and eat away at the fibers, immediately put shirt in sink or bowl with water and a cup of vinegar or lemon juice to stop the bleach chemical reaction.  It will make the t-shirt last longer.  Then wash normally to take away vinegar smell.

When we give the Don't Do Drugs presentation at schools, we have been giving away Defiance t-shirts, either giving them to PTA organizers for door prizes, or my favorite--throwing them out into audience after we speak.

The best source of the t-shirts:  thrift stores.  Goodwill has 1/2 off sales last Saturday of the month, so 6 shirts for $5.00.  My favorite thrift store in Edgewood has 1/2 off certain color tags every day, and I look for solid dark shirts there.  A nice cashier asked what I was doing, so I explained my spiel about Drugs & Defying them, and by the 2nd shopping trip he asked for a finished one and said he would wear it once a week at work to help get the message out, explaining every time someone comments on his shirt what it is all about.  Encouraging sobriety.

Home Decorating note:  Brilliant daughter Roxie positioned this IKEA rug in our hallway lined up with North!  She did get in to the Science & Math Academy, so her dreams of rocket ship building are that much closer. 

Sobriety Talk @ Fashion Show Friday Edgewood High School

Everything has a price…sometimes the price is too high--you can't afford it.

As you are looking at the dresses tonight, adding up limo rental or gas for your beater car, flowers, the dance tickets, dinner---I want you to think of your future beyond high school.  It is going to be over soon, less than 4 years, but some of the mistakes you make during these years will affect you the rest of your life-or end your life too soon.

If I were a wealthy philanthropist with $ to burn, I would pay teenagers to be sober.  Every 2 weeks you pass a clean pee test, my dream sobriety program would put $ in an account for you so that by the time you graduate you have enough for a brand new car--that freedom that you crave, and need to grow up, be independent…

My son Max was amazing-he didn't do homework, but he took tests well, horrible grades, but made it to graduation and into a good university, but after his freshman year, he blew it all away.

We all have secrets.  Maybe he started earlier, but when Max was a senior in high school I was cleaning his bedroom, throwing out the garbage when I smelled that sick-sweet smell of pot in his garbage can.  I poked around, found a homemade bong, found a bag stash of marijuana in his desk drawer.  To give him the benefit of the doubt, I asked him, calmly, if he was holding it for a friend.

He had been taking long showers with the fan on, trying to disguise what he was doing.  What should be the consequences when you are caught?  Jail time/community service?  You know it is against the law.  Smoking and drinking for minors is protecting you, but the laws against using drugs, it's not just about being old enough to do them.  Do you ever wonder why?  What is the big deal?

I have watched the life of a smart, funny, talented young man with a future waste away to a hunched, sad, husk of himself from drug use.  He caved into peer pressure and said yes to pot, and then it was easier to say yes to alcohol.  He picked up cigarette smoking from an AA meeting.  And all the hopes and dreams for his future were blown away.  Instead of trying to figure out what to major in, he was trying to get a job and keep a job; we didn't trust him to drive our car, changed the locks on the house because he was stealing grocery money for drugs.  We kicked him out of our home because he had younger siblings and was using in front of them.  He got kicked out of aunt & uncles home, grandparents after he blew chances over and over to stop.

I know your life isn't perfect, everyone has something they are dealing with, and it is hard, but please, look for help.  Stay sober, and don't use drugs and alcohol to escape dealing with reality. 

Drugs wasted my son's life.  I miss him.  You would be missed, because you are loved and valued.  Whatever mistakes you have made, however much trouble you think you are in, please ask for help.  I promise you it can get better.  I care about your safety, your happiness and success, and invite you to choose right now to say NO when someone asks you to party with them.  Do it for Max, do it for your future.  Be sober.

People ask all the time if DEFIANCE really is his middle name--and yes, it is.  We gave him that name with the prayer that he would defy the bad stuff in the world and that he would stand up for what is real and true.  If you remember nothing else from what we say tonight, know that you can show DEFIANCE of the complacency and acceptance of drugs.  Drugs hurt you.  They hurt my son.  Again, I invite you to be sober.

Stamp of Approval for Sobriety

The bishop showed up last night with his musically super talented family, sang us a beautiful Christmas hymn, gave us a plate of treats (accepted one in return, Lauren said, "I will take good care of this!") and showed us their t-shirt hems.  Bishop's was from the bottom of a Raven's t-shirt.  Jeannette's from a t-shirt she wore all the time for special education therapy teaching, I am sure there were stories behind the kids' choices, too. 

Lauren brought a white t-shirt hem and when I showed her the black & white tree and a bare trunk, she very seriously did it by herself.  She innocently asked, "What's sobriety?"   And we explained it is obeying the word of wisdom, not doing drugs, or drinking.  She said, "Okay!"

Jeannette tying her's on.

Best.  Gift.  Ever.  Thank you!