Who We Play For
We are entrusted to present this tribute gallery featuring the loved ones who left this world as a result of mental anguish that we have yet to fully understand. We grieve their departure and hope that in seeing their faces, we can demonstrate that this can happen to anyone, at any age, of any culture, in any walk of life. Free of guilt, shame, or minimizing their mental health experiences, they all deserve respect, compassion, and gratitude for sharing their short time on this earth with us. Their lives may have ended tragically, but who they were and what they mean to us are defined by what they did throughout the course of their lives that made indelible, positive impressions on us.
We cherish their wonderful memories, speak their names fondly, and they will live in our hearts forever. In their names we will continue raising awareness and helping those who struggle as our loved ones had.
We play for all of them.
Jade, 17
Jade loved to laugh and had so much to share. She was a special spirit who graced our lives with incredible beauty, compassion, empathy, creativity and talent.
Sadly, after struggling for years, Jade felt like she was hopelessly broken, a burden, and incapable of surviving in this complex world. She was exhausted by the unrelenting strain of her daily depressive and anxiety episodes in spite of all the treatments she was receiving. She did not want to die, so Jade fought valiantly, but finally succumbed to the need for the pain to end, and for it all to go quiet in her mind.
Jade is forever loved. Impossibly missed. – J.+ S.M.
Gladys, 53
My mother, Gladys, took her life in early 1972 when she was 53 and I was 17. She succumbed to unresolved trauma and loss that plagued her throughout her life. Gladys was always the life of the party and every weekend was a party. She sang, she danced, she served delicious food and she loved to escape her life with drinks. Gladys was generous with her time and if you were her friend, you never wanted for anything. She was loved by so many. – D.G.
Stephen, 64
Stephen died in 2005 at the age of 64, after struggling for years with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and several suicide attempts. I was twelve years old when he took his own life. Stephen had a brilliant mind, and graduated high school at 15 to attend MIT and study architectural engineering. He was a powerful force in many industries, working as a real estate developer, a rock festival promoter in the 1970s and a film producer in the '90s. He loved deeply and was known for having a larger-than-life personality, designing elaborate pranks and gifts for those he cared about, and planning wild adventures. He is missed dearly by all who knew him. – B.K.
Claire, 15
Claire died in 2014. She was smart, kind, and loved playing the guitar. We have great memories of ghost riding in my car and giving each other crap when I was at college. I would make fun of her for being so young, and she would make fun of me for being so old. Asking me when my social security checks were coming, and things like that. Claire is missed every second of every day. This picture is a picture of myself, Claire in the middle, and our sister Amanda on the right after Amanda won the Rowing National Championship with Ohio State in 2012. – Z.P.
Matt, 29
Matt loved the water, animals, and, most of all, his family. Matt was a natural thrill seeker, wake boarding and snowboarding were just a part of life. He was fearless...
He was raised in Chino Hills and moved to Canyon Lake in 2003. He earned his Associate’s Degree in Industrial Technology at Ivy Tech Community College. For the last ten years he was a journeyman for the Ironworkers Local 416. During his career, he constructed many freeway bridges throughout Southern California. Unfortunately in 2013, he witnessed a tragic job site accident and death of his foreman. This caused PTSD, which manifested in constant lack of sleep and finding peace in his mind. One year later, at the age of 29, Matt ended his suffering because of the inability to find proper mental health care.
Matt is survived by his parents, twin brother, fiancée (deceased), and grandparents. – J.+ A.P.
Eliza, 46
Eliza was a beautiful, fiery, yet also funny, single mother. Her love for the people around her are still felt even after her passing in 2011. She loved hard, fought hard, and felt hard. She was the embodiment of an imperfectly perfect woman.
A mother, a sister, a daughter, and also a friend and family to everyone she met. A woman who knew how to have fun, enjoy the mundane, and knew how to bring light into people’s lives.
Her presence, in the short amount of time in this world, gave a lot of people hope. Her love has preceeded over time, over this worldly nature, and brought a lot of purpose to this world.
Eliza's legacy still lives on in the hearts of people that she has touched. Her laughter, her love for the arts and people, are truly something we need to hold onto. May her last goodbye bring a lot of good reminders to us all, a united sense of purpose, to leave this world a little better place than how we have found it. To know that this unconditional love, this tremendous love that we feel even until that person no longer exists in this world, is a reminder that love is so big, love is so present. – J.A.L.