Community Corner

Every 15 Minutes ...

A son remembers his father, as his family prepares to march for suicide prevention and awareness.

(Editor's Note: This article was originally published November 06, 2011.)

Fifteen minutes.

To some, it’s just a blip on the radar of life. A moment that flickers, and then is gone, barely recalled or even talked about.

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For others it’s a defining moment, seared in memory, impossible to forget.

Ryan Williams knows something about that. His father, Bryan, left him – and his family – with that certainty.

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“We had dinner with them the night before it happened,” recalled Williams, 30, of Snellville. “Dad and I went out and got ice cream afterwards, and I stayed around to help him do a few things.”

The next day was a Saturday that should have been like any other Saturday.

Instead, Bryan Williams left his home in Lawrenceville bound for his Atlanta workplace. He went to the top deck of his job’s parking garage, looked out over the landscape, and then, he jumped. His last fifteen minutes – the national average of how often someone takes his or her own life – abruptly ending.

There was no real warning that that day would be his last. Yes, Ryan’s father battled with depression. But, he was seeing someone for that. Yes, he’d turned away from God when he was younger. But, he was finding his way back. And, yes, he complained about work.  At work though, he was always coming home with awards.

“As far as any signs, he was a normal dad,” Ryan said.

And, then January 29, 2011 happened.

“It really kind of caught a lot of us by surprise,” Ryan said,  “and I’ve been kind of struggling with (that).”

His father was the kind of man who “almost over-thought things through,” Ryan added. “I don’t know what his thought process was…”

Bryan Williams obituary ran in local newspapers, including the Marietta Daily Journal. It states that the father of three was a graduate of the University of Georgia, and that he’d attended M.I.T. and received a master’s degree from Georgia Tech.

A native of Marietta, he’d been living with his wife in Lawrenceville. There the couple attended 12Stone Church. He was a smart man, who worked as a software engineer for IBM and at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

He was 54.

Today, Ryan and his family will join together to remember his father as they march in Midtown for suicide awareness and prevention. The metro-Atlanta chapter of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is hosting its eighth annual “Out of the Darkness Walk” at Piedmont Park.

Some 500 people were pre-registered as of Friday, November 4, according to organizers. The event will especially recognize the rising number of military and veteran suicides with a “Taps” performance by Bugles Across America. Doves will also be released at the event.

“I think there’s something very empowering for survivors to join with people who have walked in their shoes and lost a loved one,” said Anna Ruth Williams, a board member with the metro-Atlanta chapter.

She, too, lost her father to suicide. (No relation to Ryan Williams.)  So, she knows first-hand. The experience of the walk creates a “positive change out of a tragedy,” she added.

On average, in Georgia 1,000 citizens take their lives each year, causing suicide rates to surpass those of homicide, according to data provided by American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

And, yes, every 15 minutes someone ends his or her life.

But, Ryan doesn’t want his father to be remembered as a number. To him, he was just Dad. He wants there to be some good to his father’s last moments.

“The walk for us is to hopefully help another family from going through what we had to go through,” he said.

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The "Out of the Darkness Walk" is 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., today (Sunday, November 6), beginning at the Piedmont Park entrance.

For more information on the metro-Atlanta chapter of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, click here.

For local assistance, those interested may attend monthly support groups at in Snellville, Ga. The meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month. On November 8, the session is from 6:30 p.m. -  8 p.m. For more details, contact Chris Owens at cowens@afsp.org, or call 404-374-5197.



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