To my dear blog family,
Please allow me just one post to shamelessly request your support in an effort to raise funds for a cause that is very near and dear to me. This coming January 15, 2012 I will be walking in the P.F. Chang’s Rock and Roll Marathon/Half-Marathon in Arizona to support the EMPACT Suicide Prevention Center (http://www.lafronteraarizona.com/). The money I raise through sponsorship will go directly to support the Survivors of Suicide support group that was so instrumental in my healing after losing my younger brother in October of 1998.
My life was completely torn apart when I lost my younger brother, Kevin to suicide. He was eighteen years old and the light of so many lives. There are no words to describe the feeling of loss and hopelessness that permeates your life when you lose a loved one in such a dramatic and unexpected way, and with a suicide there are so many compounded feelings of guilt and anger that accompany natural grief. Thankfully EMPACT-SPC had a Survivors of Suicide (SOS) support group in our area, and we were able to attend. It was in that group that I found others who had lost a loved one to suicide and in an instant I felt that I was never alone in my grief.
It has now been nearly thirteen years since Kevin took his own life, and a day does not go by that I do not think of him and wish with all of my heart that he were with me. As time has passed, slowly people have forgotten the past, or I have met new people in my life who never knew him. This walk is my way of honoring his memory while serving the EMPACT-SPC community that made me whole again when I thought there was nobody. Please consider sponsoring me by donating through our secure online page at http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/EMPACT-SPC-Riki/PFChangsRockRollMarathonHalf-Marathon.
Thank you for allowing me to use this space to request your help. I am very much looking forward to the training that will lead up to January 15th, and cannot wait to wear Kevin’s photo on my back with the love of a very proud sister.
missriki 