The subject is tragic, but a bright blue day is perfect for a preview of this event, the Out of the Darkness Walk for suicide prevention, Nov. 1 at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.
"It's a tough day for most people," event chairman Tyler West says, referring to walk day. "We want to remember those we've lost, but it's hard because of the way we lost them."
"But we also have fun," he promises of the mile-long walk that includes the presidential center's wetlands nature trail.
Roses are a tradition of the eighth annual event. Each walker receives a red rose to leave in the wire fencing along the trail, he says. If the 4,000 West expects do turn out, he imagines the fence will be "a wall of red."
Each rose is symbolic, not only of loss, but of pain that can be left behind.
The flower "is a tangible thing that represents grief," West says, and the fence is a way "to put it somewhere." At the end, he sees people leave the walk's pavilion with a clearly physical sense of letting go, "at least a temporary release."
The gesture worked for him, West says. "I felt, for the first time since I lost my grandmother [to suicide], that I had a safe, healthy place to put those emotions," he says.
This will be his fourth year of leading the walk for the all-volunteer Arkansas Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Also, he serves by governor's appointment on the newly formed Arkansas Suicide Prevention Council, aside from his ownership of a medical supply company.
Arkansas records about 380 deaths by suicide each year, according to the state Department of Health.
Last year's 1,000 walkers raised $120,000 for suicide research and education, West says. This year's fundraising goal is $150,000.
Suicide is a health issue, not a crime, that causes more than 40,000 deaths a year nationally, according to the foundation. But shame gets in the way of understanding, and silence obscures the truth that suicide is often preventable.
"If we can get to someone within 20 minutes of a suicide crisis," West says, "we have an 80 percent chance of changing that person's life."
Little Rock's walk contributes toward the foundation's objective of a 20 percent reduction in suicides by 2025. It is the largest of several Out of the Darkness Walks around the state, and part of a national campaign. More research into the causes of suicide and means of intervention will make the difference, West expects.
"Suicide is a complicated problem with a complicated solution," he says. "This is the first step -- to bring suicide out of the dark, so we can address it."
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
The walk will have some of the trappings of any other good time outdoors -- teams, team photos, sponsors, T-shirts and a drone with a camera taking aerial pictures of the crowd.
But the colorful beads the walkers will be wearing are more than decorative. Different colors identify people's reasons for joining the event: loss of a parent, a spouse, child, friend, or walking as an ally in support of the cause.
Suicide "is hard to process on your own," West says. "What I want for walkers to feel as they leave is they are not alone."
People sometimes feel like dying because of loneliness, and loneliness is the feeling among survivors that nobody else ever experienced quite the same grief. But numbers show that suicide does not happen in isolation.
The walk, for example, requires a volunteer crew of about 200 to manage, West says. It rallies thousands of walkers, largely through social media.
Suicide is so tangled in stigmas of mental disease and hopelessness, it can be hard to express.
Three times more women than men attempt suicide, but men are more likely to succeed in their attempt, according to the foundation. Nearly all have some degree of psychiatric disorder, mostly depression. Depression is generally treatable, but "has to be recognized."
A person's suicide might seem to be related to a single upsetting cause, such as job loss or divorce. It might seem to have come without warning.
But suicide almost always has multiple causes, according to the foundation. The victim probably exhibited one or several known signs of suicidal behavior. If friends and family had known the symptoms, they might have been able to intercede.
The foundation lists about a dozen warning signs of suicide on its website, afsp.org. These are among the most common:
• Talk about wanting to die, feeling hopeless, feeling trapped.
• Increased use of alcohol or drugs.
• Anxiety.
• Disrupted sleep patterns.
• Extreme mood swings.
A person showing strong signs of suicide should not be left alone, the foundation recommends. People apt to kill themselves need professional care. One way to find help is to call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255.
"We believe we are at the beginning of this movement," West says.
The need is to save lives, and the walk is to make the issue of suicide as plain to see as a community gathering in the fresh air of an Arkansas November.
"We're ready," West says, "and we're not going to stop this fight."
TAKING STEPS
The Little Rock Out of the Darkness Walk will be at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Clinton Presidential Center. Check-in and registration will be at noon. The walk is free, but walk sponsors and donations are encouraged. More information is available at afsp.org or by calling (608) 501-3386.
High Profile on 10/25/2015