Brandon Ewing @truckewing - Twitter Profile

over 1 year ago

Long post incoming: 18 years ago today, my best friend, someone I'd lived with for several years in our wild and younger days, committed suicide. Todd Jewell was a year younger than me in school, and we played sports together growing up and were friends in high school, but developed a close bond after graduating college and returning to our hometown of Richland Center. We lived together in three different houses over the course of three years and as young, single guys certainly had our share of fun tearing up the town. I knew Todd had demons but never imagined what would soon transpire. Five months after I moved out and four months after Todd was a groomsman in my wedding, he took his own life in the early morning hours of Sunday, February 18th, 2007. As my wife and I drove from our home in Reedsburg back to Richland Center after receiving the news, a million thoughts raced through my mind as the tears streamed down my face. The most persistent thought that would haunt me for years was, “What could I have done differently?” The rest of the week was a blur of sharing hugs with Todd's family and friends, attending the visitation, and serving as a pallbearer at the funeral. Like many dealing with the aftermath of suicide, a substantial amount of guilt would follow, and I often found myself getting emotional when songs, places, or memories that reminded me of my friend came into my life. I thought I had moved past much of that and into a place of acceptance, even after his father committed suicide several years later when the weight of Todd’s passing became too much to bear. Even after I lost a former high school teammate as well as a former co-worker to suicide. But in 2020, Todd's younger brother and my good friend Kirk committed suicide as well, leaving behind a wife and two young children. How do you deal with two friends and their father all committing suicide? How does their family deal with it? What could I have done? What could we all have done? They are questions I don’t have the capacity to answer. Unfortunately, those kinds of questions face far too many people, including those in high school. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics available from the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, behind unintentional injury, among young people in the 10-14, 15-24, and 25-34 year old age groups. Overall, it is the tenth-leading cause of death among all Americans. The suicide rate for all age groups in Wisconsin has increased in the last decade, including the 10-19 year-old group, which increased from 4.5 suicides per 100,000 population to 8.7 per 100,000 (as of 2020). Suicide, depression, and mental illness do not discriminate by race, sex, “popularity”, socio-economic status or any other metric. And that includes high school athletes. Unfortunately in covering high school sports for nearly a dozen years, I have seen and heard stories of varsity and sub-varsity athletes who have committed suicide, and there are many more that have undoubtedly gone unpublicized. In the last few years, we've tried to grapple with the ungraspable questions of, “Why?”, “What could we have done?”, “How did we miss this again?” I guess most of all, I just miss my friends. Prevent Suicide Wisconsin has numerous resources for prevention, identification of risk factors, support for survivors, and much more available at: https://t.co/4pcTIOrU9V If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts or actions, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 9-8-8.

TravisBOUND's tweet photo. Long post incoming:

18 years ago today, my best friend, someone I'd lived with for several years in our wild and younger days, committed suicide.

Todd Jewell was a year younger than me in school, and we played sports together growing up and were friends in high school, but developed a close bond after graduating college and returning to our hometown of Richland Center. We lived together in three different houses over the course of three years and as young, single guys certainly had our share of fun tearing up the town. I knew Todd had demons but never imagined what would soon transpire.

Five months after I moved out and four months after Todd was a groomsman in my wedding, he took his own life in the early morning hours of Sunday, February 18th, 2007.

As my wife and I drove from our home in Reedsburg back to Richland Center after receiving the news, a million thoughts raced through my mind as the tears streamed down my face. The most persistent thought that would haunt me for years was, “What could I have done differently?”

The rest of the week was a blur of sharing hugs with Todd's family and friends, attending the visitation, and serving as a pallbearer at the funeral.

Like many dealing with the aftermath of suicide, a substantial amount of guilt would follow, and I often found myself getting emotional when songs, places, or memories that reminded me of my friend came into my life.

I thought I had moved past much of that and into a place of acceptance, even after his father committed suicide several years later when the weight of Todd’s passing became too much to bear. Even after I lost a former high school teammate as well as a former co-worker to suicide.

But in 2020, Todd's younger brother and my good friend Kirk committed suicide as well, leaving behind a wife and two young children.

How do you deal with two friends and their father all committing suicide? How does their family deal with it? What could I have done? What could we all have done? They are questions I don’t have the capacity to answer.

Unfortunately, those kinds of questions face far too many people, including those in high school. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics available from the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, behind unintentional injury, among young people in the 10-14, 15-24, and 25-34 year old age groups. Overall, it is the tenth-leading cause of death among all Americans.

The suicide rate for all age groups in Wisconsin has increased in the last decade, including the 10-19 year-old group, which increased from 4.5 suicides per 100,000 population to 8.7 per 100,000 (as of 2020).

Suicide, depression, and mental illness do not discriminate by race, sex, “popularity”, socio-economic status or any other metric. And that includes high school athletes. Unfortunately in covering high school sports for nearly a dozen years, I have seen and heard stories of varsity and sub-varsity athletes who have committed suicide, and there are many more that have undoubtedly gone unpublicized.

In the last few years, we've tried to grapple with the ungraspable questions of, “Why?”, “What could we have done?”, “How did we miss this again?”

I guess most of all, I just miss my friends.

Prevent Suicide Wisconsin has numerous resources for prevention, identification of risk factors, support for survivors, and much more available at: https://t.co/4pcTIOrU9V

If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts or actions, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 9-8-8.

15

353

19

8

26K

Brandon Ewing

@truckewing

Who to follow

Last Seen Users on Sotwe

Trends for you

Most Popular Users