Sunflowers for Hope - Starting a Memorial/Foundation for my Sister, Focused on Mental Health Awareness/Suicide Prevention

2 weeks ago, my little sister committed suicide.

I shared my story in a post on here (without naming names, to protect our family's privacy, and also the privacy of the asshole who emotionally tormented her) which can be found here: https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@nulledgh0st/its-not-goodbye-but-rather-ill-see-you-later-a-tribute-to-my-little-sister

Our family has thought about this a lot as we grieve the loss of a sister, daughter, niece, granddaughter, and friend to so many...

We've decided that we wish to start a foundation/memorial in her honor, with a focus on raising Mental Health Awareness / Suicide Prevention.

My sister told none of us her intentions. She left behind nothing but a single sticky note - or at least that's all that was found initially in her home.

After reading her journals and notebooks, I discovered that she'd been suffering emotional abuse and suicidal thoughts for nearly a year - something that has been incredibly painful to both read, and mentally process.

I've spent the past few weeks "investigating" and putting together pieces of the puzzle that just didn't seem to quite fit. When I first wrote that post I shared above, there were many questions that at that time, were left unanswered. After spending every single day since laying her to rest researching, investigating her ex, talking to people in her life, etc, it's now essentially a known fact that only her ex and his ex GF knew my sisters intentions and cries for help - yet told NO one.

They knew for over 10 months. My family, myself, my sisters friends, even our entire community (we live in a rural community with a population of a little more than 3k people) had 0 idea of her intentions and how she was feeling inside. The only people she told were two people that chose to keep this information to themselves, which is absolutely despicable and horrifying.

Our goal with the foundation and memorial fund is to ensure that those that feel they have no other options - that are feeling distressed, lost, hopeless - that there IS hope. That they CAN reach out to someone, anyone, and get help.

We will never know why my sister chose not to personally tell us, or even leave hints that she was hurting and being emotionally abused by her ex. It pains us deeply and reading her personal journal entries has really left me with a pain that may never heal, but I accept it and did it because everyone wanted answers - none of us felt any sort of closure whatsoever, despite her wake having the largest turnout that the funeral home ever held, and the funeral being absolutely beautiful.

Her favorite flowers were sunflowers. People have been sending us tens of thousands of sunflower seeds in the mail via Amazon, and we are overwhelmed with the love and support our community has shown us during this extremely difficult time. We want to create something beautiful in her honor, and have her legacy be one which creates a positive impact in the lives of others that are struggling.

I am personally meeting with our local bank and various members of the community that own most of the businesses to discuss the beginnings of starting this fund up, but I also want to start raising both funds and awareness on my own.

We will be creating a non-profit organization in her honor - the name is TBD, but I have something in mind already, "The Sunflower Hope" fund/foundation, or something to that effect. I'd love if anyone else has any suggestions or ideas. We'd also probably incorporate her name into it, but until it's official, I'd still like to maintain her privacy until it's legitimized.

There's not enough awareness or talk happening around mental health and suicide prevention in the US (and possibly even globally, I'm honestly not quite sure), and that's something that I aim to change.

I'll be creating a Hive account in the name of the foundation once the name is chosen and the legal non-profit entity created - anything earned from post rewards, donations, etc will be used directly for this foundation.

Thank you for those of you that have reached out to me and shown your support, especially @hivelist / @thelogicaldude / @hivehustlers. I am so grateful and words can never express how deeply appreciative I am that people have cared enough to reach out. It means the world to me.

I've personally started powering down my own personal Hive / POB / LEO tokens as funerals aren't cheap, and my family could use the help. My sister didn't leave anything behind except a lot of debt (which I've been working to eliminate as best as I can). I'm not asking for anything from anyone - that's not the nature of this post. The purpose of this post was to simply share my future plans for a new account in my sisters memory, and to also share a message - that there is HOPE.

No matter how you're feeling - whether you're depressed, feeling suicidal, feeling lost, or simply feel that no one cares, please remember - you matter. You are loved. There is ALWAYS someone you can talk to - you can reach out to me any time on Discord or here, and I will gladly chat with you. Because I know how it feels. I've felt how my sister felt before, and I've faced my own demons before. Losing my sister is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and I made a promise to her as we laid her to rest - that I would do my very best to help others that are struggling get through turbulent times, and realize that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

You do matter. Always remember that.

🖤

-gh0st

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