“I just want to spread awareness about it so that maybe it will stop a couple kids from having to go through what I had to go through,” mentioned Sophie Hayes.
HASLET, Texas — The dialog is tough. The dialog is painful.
The dialog is typically thought-about taboo.
But an 11-year-old girl in Tarrant County is courageous sufficient to step ahead and communicate up about suicide consciousness and remedy, in reminiscence of the dad she needs was nonetheless right here.
Breckenridge, in Stephens County, is a stable two-and-a-half-hour drive from Dallas. And, 15 miles south of city on FM 576, Shady Grove Cemetery holds graves relationship again to the flip of the century.
But in a again nook underneath a scraggly juniper tree you’ll find a grave but with out its everlasting marker. It’s as a result of the loss of Derek Hayes remains to be so very painful and new.
And at her dwelling in Haslet again in Tarrant County, Sophie Hayes requested for an opportunity to discuss him — and the images on her bed room wall.
“It’s just special. It was from my elementary school dance,” she mentioned of her image with Derek Hayes: her dad.
“Well I like it because it reminds me of him. Feels like he’s looking down on me, watching over me,” she mentioned.
And the loss of life of Derek Hayes seven months in the past was all of the tougher for a younger daughter to perceive as a result of it was suicide.
“I was pretty close to kind of lying, just flat out lying to her because it seemed like an easier talk to have,” Sophie’s mother Tori Wolfenbarger Hayes mentioned.
A discuss despair, addictions and psychological sickness. Derek Hayes was simply 35-years-old.
“My main concern is how Sophie feels one day to the next and sometimes it’s one minute to the next,” Sophie’s mother mentioned.
“I am happy some days, sad some days. Some days I’m like not OK you know,” Sophie mentioned seated subsequent to her mother at their Haslet dwelling.
So why then, did I agree to discuss one thing this painful — this tough — with an 11-year-old girl? I’ll let Sophie clarify that half.
“Why are you so brave to talk about this,” I requested her.
“I just want to spread awareness about it so that maybe it will stop a couple kids from having to go through what I had to go through,” she mentioned.
Because whereas counseling has helped and a “grief bear,” a teddy bear made out of one of her dad’s shirts, is sweet — she mentioned she wanted one thing extra.
“It’s still really tough. Especially around his birthday,” she mentioned.
So on what would have been her dad’s birthday, Sophie started a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
“We wanted to get to $360 because he was turning 36,” she mentioned.
That $360 objective now approaching $3,000 raised, with a few more days to go.
“I kind of want to send a message like, it’s gonna be OK you know,” she mentioned. “There are ways to get better. There are ways to feel better. You just have to feel open to opening up about it and getting help.”
“It’s an illness just like any other kind of illness,” Sophie’s mother mentioned. “Just to be able to talk openly, that there’s not shame in it.”
“I just want there to be awareness and for word to be spread,” added Sophie.
“So proud of her. I’ve always been really proud of her,” Sophie’s mother mentioned. “The way she’s been handling something that most people never have to go through. I mean, yes, I’m proud of her every day. Absolutely.”
“Do you feel as brave as I think you are right now,” I requested her.
“No,” she answered, “There’s some days where I have no courage. I guess it’s getting me through this, knowing that I can spread awareness. And even if that doesn’t happen I’m happy to have talked with you today.”
A courageous girl who determined to discuss brazenly and to take her heartbreak and switch it into therapeutic for another person.
“I’m OK. I know I’m gonna be OK. I just know that I have my family here and I know that I’m gonna be alright.”
And, in her dad’s reminiscence, desires everybody else to be alright too.
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