Breakfast of Champions 2017 with Sue Klebold

credible crowd this morning I'm delighted to be here to participate in yet another signature st. joseph´s event let me congratulate first of all those incredible mental health Award winners from whom we just found what are we doing thank you to Michelle on the foundation team to your chair Peter Watt Mort to all of your committee members in your sponsors congratulations for creating an opportunity with this annual breakfast to shine a light on an issue which still does not receive its due in attention and funding despite its prevalence and its pernicious impact dr. Kearney had referred to the story of Columbine well I was one of the journalists who covered the story of Columbine albeit from here at home I just landed my first news anchor job in Montreal and I well remember trying to make sense of the horrific images to our viewing audience the scenes sadly have become familiar in the 18 years since but Columbine with the first 13 dead 24 wounded the world reeled and the questions began immediately thereafter about the two shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who were they why had they done what they did what had happened in their childhood their home of their families that led to their unspeakable acts the answer is returned incomplete because the boy's parents never spoke publicly they lived with their secrets until last year when Dylan Klebold mothers who wrote this book called a mother's reckoning it is unremittingly poignant it is unflinchingly honest her journey to understanding is engaging and in particular for us this morning instructive because at its core this is the story of a mother who did not recognize what was happening in mind in the brain of her beloved son until it was too late and a mother now shares her story with others in hopes of and helping them recognize a child in distress and of preventing other devastating outcomes would you please offer a warm welcome this morning to our guest Suki and as we settle into I'm looking at my clock we have 40 minutes what a privilege it is for me to spend the time with you and join me get welcome to London of course you can hear and see the interest in your story today and let me welcome you to Canada as well because what you will not realize is that this is Sue's first speaking appearance ever in this country so we're rather special yes let's just make everybody hearing sue it's my mic working yet okay well welcome to Canada so I'm curious what is it like for you at this moment when you get set to share your story with a whole new audience yet again for me it's a journey of many many miles and years because when this first happened to me I was I knew nothing about suicide nothing about how my son came to be in that place at that time and what I see is is that things are changing that we are more able now to talk about brain health in the context of behaviors and I am overwhelmed and heartened to see so many people who are ready to listen and to work together it just makes me feel wonderful we're going to talk about your journey in the next 40 minutes but I want to begin with the question that I heard from people I canvassed people I knew and I said what would you like to ask what's the number one question you would like to ask sue Klebold if you were in my chair and they all said why you live for many years privately and everyone I think would understand if that was the way that you continue to live your life understandably and yet you've chosen to come forward and write this book so in terms of your motivation why why now well there are really two questions one is why write a book and the second question is why publish a book and those two things carried me forward from the beginning the experience was so difficult and I was so devastated by it that writing was the way that I coped with the loss it helped me get some of the pain and agony out and kind of lay it down on a piece of paper I was driven to write from the moment this happened the harder decisions came when I was trying to decide whether or not to publish because the one thing I feared most was being a public person I didn't want to be recognized I didn't want anyone to know who I was because I was afraid I was afraid of their reactions I was afraid of being judged but as I got more involved in the suicide prevention community and started meeting other survivors of loss or survivors of attempts I began to feel that I had a responsibility that people would tell me that knowing me and knowing my story changed the way they parented or the way they interacted with their children and that carried me forth and I came to the conclusion that I had no choice that I must do this and I think that's how I kind of arrived at this one you described it as feeling a moral imperative yes that that is the way it felt that it was something I there was no way I could deny doing this it became something that my life was about and I had to had to do it I just asked you why in your book interestingly you suggest that we shouldn't ask why this happened in terms of your son's action but rather how this happened it's an interesting distinction and as we begin our discussion how do you hope it shapes the way or the lens through which we understand the event when we ask why questions certainly I learned this from the beginning they don't serve us well I know that when the tragedy first happened I was completely confused I didn't understand what had happened I didn't know why he was there at first I thought it was some kind of a prank hood had gone wrong but the community around me had a very strong need to ask why and it very quickly turned to assigning blame so it was became a climate where everyone was angry with everyone else everyone was suing everyone else and it was all based on this why question because they wanted to know did this happen because of video games because of bullying because of school climate because of the medication that Eric had been taking everybody was suing everybody else and the white question to me did not get it any of the answers we needed to look at as the years went by and that I could see the villains condition from his writing was deteriorating over a period of years and I didn't know this at the time but in looking at his writings after long after he died I could see that he was writing about wanting to die and wanting to kill himself wanting to get a gun he wrote that he had been cutting himself when he was 15 and he died at the age of 17 I had no idea that this was going on under the surface so the important question became how does someone progress to the point where they can do something that's horrible that he did and the how question was really the answer the question that seemed far more important than trying to pin it down to one flawed question it's what we're going to spend the bulk of our time discussing the how and the process and because that's the message we want to have on this particular occasion so we'll move into that but I'd like to begin this next series of questions as your book begins and that is revisiting to a certain extent April 20th 1999 which was the day of course of the shooting your day began very early in the morning the last time you heard the voice of your son yeah tell us that story this is where I always take a deep breath because it's it's hard for me to relive that I'm going to give a little background leading to that day Dylan was a graduating senior he was 17 years old he had entered school a year early because he was very bright and very tall and they felt it was appropriate to begin his school year early the year before his death he had gotten into some trouble suddenly he had been arrested with Eric for stealing something from a parked van they found on a country road he had also gotten in trouble at school he scratched a locker and he had some friends figured out how to hack into the school computer system because they were the technicians of the school those things happened in a cluster in his junior year he had gotten in trouble we had responded trying to do what we thought was best and he had been in something called a diversion program which is a program that he had counseling and anger management classes and drug testing and we believed that he was being well cared for he was terminated from the program early because he and Eric had done such a great job the counselor thought that they were exceptional so from that time forward he had said I will prove to you that I don't need counseling because I had asked him I don't understand this behavior can you explain this to me I'm worried do you think you need to see a counselor and he said no I will prove to you that I don't need counseling and he did in the year the last year of his life he proved to us he went to school he had a job after school he was involved in school plays he had a lot of friends or phone rang cause in the days leading up to that morning dealing with the graduating senior he had gone to a prom that weekend with his friends there were 12 of them in a limousine and they all dressed up when they went out for dinner he had been accepted at four colleges and certainly the University of his choice which was the University of Arizona he'd been accepted there I thought things were going great the weekend before Columbine my husband said to me have you noticed the pitch of Dylan's voice it seems tight he said I think he may be stressed about something and I said I don't care anything Tuesday morning I'm getting ready for school for work Dylan had an early-warning bowling class that morning it was dark I had to get up very early to get to my job downtown and it wasn't time to wake up Dylan yet but I heard him bounding down the stairs big heavy footsteps and I thought what's he doing up so early and I opened my bedroom door all the lights were out the house was pitch black and I yelled dill and I heard the front door slam and he said bye and that was the last time I heard his voice he went out the front door he sped off and went to school I woke my husband and said I think something is bothering him will you be here today I had no idea that we were in a life-and-death situation I thought he had just something was bothering him and Tom said yes I'll be here because he worked out at the house and I said well you talked to him and figure out what this is and he said sure I'll talk to him and that day I went to work and it knew my husband left a phone message that something terrible was happening at the school someone was there were shooters they believe Dylan might be involved because one of the shooters had a trench hose and Dylan owned a trench coat and that's when the hell began I came home from school to learn from work to begin to learn what was happening not just something happen there's something happening for which your son was one of the people responsible during the course of events of that afternoon right about saying prayer at a certain moment what did you pray for I was hearing that this event was going on and of course we hadn't had events like that yet I didn't understand the enormity of what was to come but they were saying that my son might be involved in killing people or shooting people and of course my first thought was well that's wrong that couldn't be happening Dylan wouldn't do that that isn't who he is or anything that he would do but when I heard that it was believed that he was killing people my prayer was I I prayed that he would die I thought he can't do this he's got to be stopped I'm not there to stop him nobody's there to stop him so I prayed that you if that was true that he would die and then later that day they told me that he was dead but I didn't know what had happened or what the connection I just didn't want him to hurt anyone else I also prayed that he would take his own life so that I would know that that would be his signal to me that he chose to die that that was his decision and I had no idea then how hard it would be to be a suicide loss survivor to know that someone I loved chose to die and that was another piece that had to be worked through that began immediately thereafter you were mourning a son the circumstances in which he died everything happened around at that time you write and wrote in a journal in the immediate moments that there is no respite from the agony in the immediate hours and days what was it like to be you I it's very difficult to describe that experience because if we think all of the negative emotions a human being can have I mean think through for a moment fear anger stress great heartbreak sorrow I had all of those things you know honor scale of one to ten they were all set at ten at the same time it was very conflicted because I didn't understand what had happened I only knew that somehow my son my promising kid who was going off to college and I thought with happy human being had supposedly done that the community when you have something like a murder-suicide there are two very conflicting pieces a high-profile thing like this one is the terrible agony to think that he hurt innocent people I looked in the paper and I saw you know weeping mothers and pictures of funerals and children in caskets and to think that my child could do something like that but in addition to that I had also lost my own son and I was grieving for him but along with that sort of bifurcated trauma there was this firestorm of hatred Oh against our family our governor got on national television right from the beginning and made a statement that this was the parents fault something like this is the parents fault and so there was this firestorm of hatred and I was terrified we were living at the sort of like Anne Frank I was living we were staying in someone's basement I couldn't write a check I was afraid that someone would learn who I was I was in terror all the time when I first went back to work the might remember my boss showing me the back staircases so that I know how to get out so with constant fear heartbreak exhaustion confusion I don't even have enough adjectives to describe that and questioning yes as you've said in your TED talk so it gives a an incredible TED talk you talk about trying to accept from the very outset obviously your son's legacy and the fact that he was a completely different person from the one you knew and that's what's key for us this morning you've given us a little bit of insight but talk about Dylan your son as a child first of all you called him where he was the sunshine boy everyone gave you that you were proud of him you were grateful for him tell us about your little boy Dylan was our second child I have two boys and Dylan was three years younger than my older son and he was an amazing child if you haven't ever had a child who really makes you feel like a good parent because they seem to do everything right so that's the way Dylan was as a child he was you know he had thick golden hair like a lion he had blue eyes he was precocious he was very very bright I had been a teacher from my career and I think one of the things that made me just tickled to death is how smart I was and how easily he learned the things I remember about Dylan my favorite things about him were just how easily he learned things when he was three years old and still wearing diapers at night he got a magnet set with numbers and you know a little equal sign and a plus and a minus sign he loved that thing and he wanted to know what the plus sign meant and what the equal sign meant and I had it one time I said to him well the plus sign means if there's a - you count out - and I gave him pinto beans on the floor and I said so it says two plus three so I said here's two pinto beans the plus sign puts this pile of three pinto beans to put them together and you count them again two plus three equals five and then he was off doing equations he never asked me again and that was how quickly he learned addition subtraction was the same thing he taught I don't know how he learned how to read I was a reading specialist I don't remember teaching him anything but at the age of four he could read Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little silently to himself on the couch he was a remarkable child whatever he did he did well it was happy and your family life was happy I may thought it was well the order this is a striking line from your book the ordinariness of our lives before Columbine will be perhaps the hardest thing for people to understand about my story so in the home what was family life like well it was nagging with two boys there's a lot of noise and broken things and we had moved to the country when Dylan was in third grade and as you know ninjas and you know knocked over things and in summers making you know plastic models of World War two tanks and soldiers and a great big pile of surge in the basement where they made this giant battlefield army they had many bikes they rode through the hills it just it just one of the things that struck me when the shooting was happening with how could this happen to us how could it be I be a good mom I tried to do to give Dylan what was as close to an ideal childhood as I was able to provide and I remember thinking I don't understand this at all but even before I knew he had died I knew that if this is really happening and Dylan is really hurting people I have to teach something I have to learn something first and then I have to be able to teach something because this is totally beyond anything I've ever would ever understand like it was lots of love lots of sharing no guns antique oh that was another funny thing and of course the United States everybody has done ties about the country all of our neighbors have guns we didn't have guns we were the rare ones in our neighborhoods and I didn't want my kids to play with guns and that was one of the reasons when people say how could you not know how could you I've never even thought to look for a gun in my house would you would you think that there would be a gun in your house if you've never had one it never occurred to me to even look for such a thing and yet adolescent years come changes come as they do for most teens but that sunshine boy his personality began to change somewhat so talk about some of the things that as you look back you now can point to I noticed a change in behavior when Dylan was in about sixth grade that's when he was transitioned to our junior high school what we call junior high and he became a lot more self conscious he became a lot more serious he wanted to be invisible he didn't he wanted he didn't want any attention called to himself but of course a lot of that is normal behavior for a young teen they're going through that I remember dropping him off at junior high one day I guess I was picking him up and I yelled out the car window you were doing and he got into cars like don't say my name fast my friends you know the sentencing so in that respect you know it it appeared to be a normal teen experience but there were some times that he would come home I remember one time in particular in about eighth grade where he was upset about something and he didn't want to talk about it and he went to his room and he closed the door and I was concerned and I you know I came up to bring some chocolate milk and he was asleep and I could see that you know he was crying he'd been crying and when I asked in the next day what it was he did said oh some kids were mean they were but other than that you know I could see that there were changes going on but I didn't see the magnitude of where he was going I think the biggest change that I saw was in 11th grade when he got into trouble he had never been in trouble before to my way of thinking Dylan was kind of a perfectionist he was one of these kids that did everything right he was very self-monitoring he was a me do it let me take care of it he asked me when he was ten years old how do I do my laundry he wanted to do everything and take care of himself and I think this very strong sense of self-reliance was something that made me as a parent back off and trust that and I think when his thinking began to deteriorate and he began to have suicidal thoughts and really begin to question himself I was not aware just how fragile he really was because of his history of being the self-reliance a good kid the one that got all the answers right concerned but as many parents might well this is just a phase this is adolescence and when you did get in trouble in eleventh grade I remember being somewhat thankful I think what would he needs to learn the life isn't perfect you know he needs to have some struggles because that's part of how we develop those we talked about them so there was the hacking of the computer there was the graffiti on ax on a locker scratching marks then there was the the set from the van electronics equipment again with his friend Erik and there was a story he wrote for school that raised when red flags it did involve someone shooting and the teacher brought it to your attention but never followed yes well that story actually happens later do I give him more than a year later but in that series of the beginning to accelerate troubles and again as you look at it no morning bells no red flags for you the the very end of his life there were a few things that indicated that something might be wrong one of them was and this was again that year before he died it was Mother's Day everything that happened sort of together at school was the scratching and at that same moment at that same time with Mother's Day and he forgotten to get me a card or a gift so I said something about that and and that's when I gave him the mom lecture you know you need to pull your own weight around here you know you're not thinking about anybody but yourself when I push them against the refrigerator and I have deep deep regrets about that because I think when our loved ones especially kids it appears that they're being uncooperative or irritable or selfish these are signs that something may be wrong and I have tremendous regret that I approached it as a sort of authoritarian parent you know you need to straighten up you need to think about someone else you need to I was telling him what I thought he needed to do and my deepest regret is that I didn't just say tell me I'm here to listen what you know what's going on I wish that I had embraced him and sat down instead of trying to mold him into what I thought he should be now at the end of his life the very last days of his life he wrote a paper at school that was very dark the teacher we had gone in for this is just a few weeks before graduation he'd already been accepted at college I thought it was you know we thought it was senioritis see on one of the teachers said he's getting a deed in English he needs to get his act together so we went in for the conference she did not that the English teacher did not mention this paper until we got there and she said Dylan has written a dark paper and used some bad language and and she said I don't know what to make of that and we talked about it she didn't show me the paper I didn't see it I didn't see it too many months after he died and there's real irony here because she said it's such a dark paper she said now Eric just other shooters now Eric wrote a paper in that class and it was so cute he told he wrote the story from the perspective of a bullet that was being shot and it was written with humor and she said it was just very entertaining you read it to the class but Dylan's paper was so dark red flag red flags nobody caught it nobody saw it the eric had written this story about a bullet being shot from the point of view of the bullet dylan had written this story because it turns out about witnessing a murder and my husband said is this something we need to be concerned about and she said well I don't know and I said well you know I'm thinking I'm an artist and I believe in writing to help us and I'm thinking well isn't it good that he's expressing some of these feelings in writing and she said yeah but it's not appropriate for school and she say I know what let's show it to the school counselor and see what he thinks and I said good idea then middle so call us he'll tell us if there's something we should be concerned about excuse me and so she told the school counselor the school counselor knowing Dylan knowing him as a nice likable kid looked at the paper and he looked Dylan we talked to Dylan II he said Dylan what's with it he said you know you're not allowed to write bad words in the school paper and dilip's that I know and he said well don't do it again okay and Dylan said okay flash-forward you know almost 20 18 years later that alone would have qualified Dylan for some kind of a threat assessment now a kid who had written the paper like that who that intimate seeking another teacher reported that he was sleeping in class if you put some of these things together we might have some symptoms of depression here someone could have invested and I believe that if his suicide had been remediated he certainly would not have been involved in the event at all because I believe that he was motivated to be there because he wanted to end his life we have the benefit of that of that hindsight now the 18 years to look back but again one of the things in the book we reveal is of all the letters and the messages that people sent you strangers one came that you remember big black marker writing how could you not know and so as I listened to the sign that add up perhaps now as we sit here right you truly did not know what we're not able to put the picture to get home and I think the one assurance everyone should have about that is if I have known that my son was in any kind of danger I would have done something about it I have allowed him to do anything that I thought would be harmful to himself in the last on the day of the shootings when this happened and I was driving home in a panic trying to think about what could be happening what I was thinking of was Dylan's involved in some kind of a Franken school he's going to be in trouble he's been on diversion and they told him that if he did anything like put shaving cream on a banister he would have a felony on his record I wasn't even thinking about what was really happening in my mind it was Dylan's done something stupid he's involved in a prank some theater that might have gone wrong because he was in a video class you did plays at school I thought there was some kind of an event going on because they were screwing around I didn't think it was anything it was as real as it was and it really is clear in the book that it really didn't become true to you until the police months after the fact gave you these not only journals but pages like notebooks and when you can see his state of mind and as you're reading that and as you're reading things like I hate my life and want to die that he wants a gun that he's himself that he's in agony what was that I felt that I had been hit with a hatchet through the heart I think of those old Halloween costumes you know we have this plastic hatchet and you're bleeding and I just felt that I was walking around with the axe in my body that when I thought of the suffering he had been experiencing for so long and I didn't have the right words I didn't I didn't know how to express any way to help him I he was told that he was loved every day I mean I hugged this kid I told him I loved him I told him I was proud of him and it always upset me when people say you know this wouldn't have happened if only you told Dylan that you loved him and I had people said to me and I said if it's bill Dylan that I loved him I told him that every day but what I didn't do was somehow allow him to speak to me in a way to make him feel safe they would not make him feel that that I wouldn't hear it I think it's parents what we try to do so often is when our kids talk to us we try to fix it I would go to my mom when I was a kid you know what was so ugly nobody likes me she would probably say well I think you're pretty I love you and pretty is as pretty does she would try to fix it she would try to deny the feeling and say you don't really feel like that because I love you and things are going to be fine and I realized my big regret is that I did not that I did not shut up and listen I tried to fill the spaces when we talked and tried to help him and I think as parents sometimes our role it's not so much to help our children feel better it's to help them feel to help them get in touch with what they feel and if they are able to tell us what they feel shut up and listen give them a chance to get in touch with those feelings and don't freak out because what we're going to hear may be very difficult to hear and they may be in a life-and-death crisis and we to be prepared to be calm enough and to listen and to try to keep a listening and to keep them talking and that is my biggest regret that I didn't know how to do that I did not know that it needed to be done and that's wife time yeah two year descent yeah there could have been help one of your messages is love is not enough yeah I think we heard that in Riley's comments as well her beloved sister yes and then that is that is something to keep in mind so as you write about having not knowing not knowing how to help missing these subtle psychological changes not understanding them and not realizing what you call be your the drastic and lethal underestimation of the depth of his pain severity of his pain you're his mom you love him more than anyone you know him probably better than anyone I'm thinking of all the parents here and yet that happened that's a terrifying thing to parents that they may not know their children and it is a terrifying thing that's why I do what I do because I was someone who believed number one that someone I loved would never die by suicide if in fact if I go to a school function or some kind of an event and there'd be a little table on suicide prevention I will always walk right past it because that didn't apply to me I knew how to be a good mom I knew how to communicate with my kids they could tell me anything I believed and my self assessment was so wrong and so that's why I share this story is is to have a solid question what we believe about our relationships and our loved ones because people who are in pain people who are struggling with thoughts that are deteriorating and toxic they hide that they don't want anyone to know that they're ashamed of those feelings it's not something that they want people to know and they're not likely to speak to us about them for whatever fears they may have of our reaction of our interventions if they're adults they may lose their jobs who know what the consequences may be but this is our challenge now as a mental health community to provide ways for us to communicate and to listen and to accept and to help and to guide to resources and to provide hope that this is a period of time in which these feelings are toxic and they are lethal and you may feel that you want to die right now but a lot of people go through these things and we'll help you get through that I didn't have those words or those thoughts because I hadn't walked this journey yet so as you speak in this community to st. Joseph's community which you could hear is putting such an emphasis on suicide prevention zero suicide what do you think it means to provide what role must a facility must an organization like this play at this point in my work with suicide prevention and being in a member of The Suicide Lost community what I have found is that there are two sort of scenarios that those of us who have lost loved ones to suicide belong to part of us know that our loved one is ill and suffering and maybe we spent years with them in and out of treatment trying to get them help and eventually sometimes it doesn't it isn't enough and they die the other half of that community like myself had no idea that their loved one was suffering they had no idea that there was something they could have done if we use that as a guide that sort of tells us where we need to go I think one is I believe that every one of us should be educated you know Mental Health First Aid is a given we should all have some kind of mental health first aid training and classes but the gatekeepers the people who are in contact with our loved ones also need to have that we as a family friends siblings parents children we have to feel comfortable talking to someone when they are in crisis most of us don't know how to do that we don't even know where to begin we don't want to say the word suicide because we're afraid that just saying it might make someone do it but research is telling us that it's an important question we need to be asking are you feeling suicidal these sometimes feel like you just wish you were dead tell me about that the other side of this is all the systems that we interact with in our lives have to be changed so that we become better equipped to handle people who are in crisis in a certainly in Dylan's life the school system right off the bat they were warning signs right and left in the school system they didn't have anything in place not even the school counselor understood the level of danger that he was in and ultimately the danger that he created within the school he saw his family physician just a several weeks before he died for a sore throat he was in the office with a lethal condition from which he would die within two months but there was nothing in place in the healthcare system to do any kind of questioning of him or assessment of him the criminal justice system was another place he was involved with they didn't do any kind of an assessment to try to understand why a boy a privileged intelligent loved child would suddenly break with everything he'd been taught and do something the criminal justice system was very largely responsible for separating us from Dylan when he got into the diversion program they said let us handle it don't call us we're in charge here go on about your business and now they're seeing that it's very important to bring families and kids together when they get in trouble with the law the opposite happened for Dylan it just goes on and on all the simple answer yes no simple answer glasses indicates clear with tragic consequences 18 years of this quest for understanding that you have been on and do you now understand not only the fact that he wanted to take his own life but that he was willing to take so many others with I don't know how to answer if I understand it if I accept it it's still very hard for me to accept I think of it all the time I can be anywhere and I'll be in a grocery store and I'll see families with children and I just recoil because I think you know Dylan took that away from someone he took a loving child away from his parents they also killed a teacher I have more understanding of it now and my understanding has come in Dylan's case certainly not so much with Erics because I believe Eric's pathology was different from villains but murder suicide is a subset of suicide and I believe that certainly feelings of victimization very quickly can lead to violence and I think Dylan perceived that he was a victimized person at the school I think that was his perception we could argue whether or not it was justified I believe he experienced bullying and rough treatment but that was a pretty toxic school and a lot of people were treated badly there it's very hard for me to say yes I can understand this because I don't want it to seem that yet I can justify this I can say well yes it's understandable that this happened it's not understandable but what I do feel is that Dylan was not in his right mind when he did this I have two quick questions but Mike who talked to you for much longer and and I think that this crowd would be riveted by your story if we were to continue but there's a very important panel discussion that we're going to get way as well your book is called a mother's reckoning which i think is a really interesting word but it's also a mother's tribute to the son she lost what are your feelings toward Dilys today I still adore him with all of my heart I talked to him I dream about him sometimes I cry when I wake up because in a dream I'll be holding him we're talking to him and it's a very hard reality a harsh reality when I wake up even 18 years later and he has been yanked away from me because I've come back into the conscious world he is beloved and every time I speak everything I do I tell him that it's for him the book is something that's helping in many ways the proceeds from Sue's book are for suicide prevention organizations and suicide research all of the money is raised so that is a very tangible help from your story but as I give you the last word for your message you've given us a call to action both as an organization and I think to parents too but from your lessons and your life what is a message that you'd like to send us home with today I think I will repeat what you said before and that is love is not enough we cannot love away someone's mental deterioration it takes more than love it takes the right resources it takes knowing skills how to talk knowing where to go for help when you need help helping us all do a better job of understanding what's going on with this big pot of people that have psychological distress they don't quite fit into the slots yet but they need help and they need more than love and we need to all work hard to try to find ways to help this is the book a mother's reckoning living in the aftermath of tragedy mine well-thumbed and will marked if you haven't read it I would encourage you to do so Sookie bold that your courage of candor your grace dignity thank you very very much [Applause] as you reflect on Sue's message

Channel: St. Joseph's Health Care Foundation

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Id: _Znm09GJKJM

Length: 43min 56sec (2636 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2017