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Rebecca Rosario 6/29/22
On June 26, 2020 our world turned upside down. We lost my Dad to suicide on our daughter's 13th birthday. Nineteen days later, her best friend left us in the same way.
Take a minute to breathe that in. My 64 year old Dad, Grandfather to 5 Grandchildren and one on the way...Husband and best friend to my mom, ended his battle with mental illness.
Best friends of the framily (friend+family) since the ages of 3 and 4. She was a little sister to our oldest son, a surrogate daughter to Christine and I but most importantly she was our daughter's person.
The aftermath of these tragedies are still being sorted through.
Christine and I were both classroom teachers at the time. Due to COVID the schools were reopening in a hybrid format. Some teachers petitioned to work from home. Due to our specific content areas and the lack of support from our respective leadership we needed to be back in the classroom.
What needs to be made clear here is that when someone close to you takes their life, there are published statistics of the increased likelihood of someone close to the situation who has contemplated taking their life in the past will follow through with it. This resulted in our children not being able to be left alone by advisement of mental health professionals that had already been in our lives.
Christine and I began to wrestle with how could we still bring in the income we need and still be available to our children by being in complete control of our schedules? We have such a mixed bag of vocational and life experiences and like a divine vapor rose into our awareness, what if we become helpers?
Then and there on our living room couch with coffee in hand we started doodling what that would look like.
What if we just showed up as the 2 moms that we are, meeting people where they are?
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