Today would have been Diego's 17th birthday. Four months ago Diego decided to end his life and we have all been left with such a hole in our lives because of that decision. I have learned more about suicide in the last four months than I ever thought I would need to know. We have all made it our mission to honor his life by making sure that we education the youth of this community and ensure that they understand the full magnitude of what this kind of decision does to all those around them. While I agree that Diego didn't really know what he was doing, his choice has taken away his pain but given that pain to numerous people who loved and cared deeply about him.

Suicide is a tricky thing. Initially I was so angry and guilt-ridden that it was practically eating me alive. How could I not have know? How could I be sitting next to him on Thursday and on Sunday he be gone? Why, oh why could I not save him?  How could he do this to his family and friends? How did he not know how very much he was loved by so many? Why did he do this? All these questions, and more, continue to swirl through all our heads. We may never know the answers to any of these questions, and we need to learn to be at peace with that. At some point we have to change our focus from the Whys and Hows and move toward making his short life meaningful by turning away from the anger and guilt and toward a way to honor his precious memory.

While we are making moves to honor his memory, what I truly feel now is a deep sadness and an almost stifling need to protect those around me from the sadness that seems to have taken our precious Diego away. Diego left us no clues, so I find myself overanalyzing my family and friends to be sure I won't miss anything. I am not sure my heart could handle another loss like this, but I know in reality that life is full of sadness and that I will need to persevere despite my heart feeling like it might break.

These feelings of sadness have also driven us all to find a way to ensure that no other family has to go through what Diego's family is experiencing right now. We know the reality is that we will most likely not be able to save everyone, but we can certainly try, right?  

Through this grief process I was comforted by educating myself. I knew nothing about suicide before this experience, so I sought to find out more in an attempt to comfort Diego's family and friends.  The most helpful book I read was My Son, My Son: A Guide to Healing After Death, Loss, and Suicide by Iris Bolton. Hands-down the best resource I found to help me understand the grieving process.  The most incredible workshop I went to was called SafeTALK, a three hour training that helped me to feel more prepared to deal with this issue in the future.  But being a teacher, I know the answer is going to lie in not only educating myself, but educating the students in our community. They need to understand not only the devastation this decision causes, but they also need to be empowered to identify signs of suicidal tendencies and to know how to find help for an at-risk person. My hope is that the foundation we create in Diego's name will provide this safeTalk training to our Middle and High School students so they can work as a team to tackle the issue of suicide.

Happy birthday Dear Diego!  We miss you more than words can ever articulate, but we will try to carry on without you by helping other students understand that nothing in life is so bad that you cannot ask for help. We wish we could go back and save you, but our birthday gift to you is helping your friends and family see how precious life is--#playfordiego  #playforlife

Every year it happens without fail.  The weather gets colder, the mornings get darker, and my body decides it is time to fluff up and tempt me to skip my early morning, slightly freezing, dark as heck runs.  It is not even officially winter and it has already started, and I know I am not alone.  

This morning, after having already taken Friday and Saturday as laze around days, my body had the nerve to beg me for another day of reprieve. Now I know that I deserve rest--I have put my body through a lot these days, but I know the difference between I need to rest days and I am just being lazy days.  Luckily, this morning I had set it up so that a group of us was "suffering," I mean training together, and the likelihood of us all flaking was pretty small. What I found interesting is that we all felt the same way...we all wanted to be back in bed instead of bundled up in our winter gear ready to hit the roads. Even Gabby who loves her early morning weekend long runs was not her chipper self. Her first comment to us all was how she almost stayed home and she actually said that she wouldn't mind doing less than ten miles--she never wants to short our miles!

That's when I remembered that this time of year is tough for us all.  Besides the weather, the dark, the being bundled up like sausages, we also have all the stresses of the holidays to contend with as well. We have holiday parties that compete with our sleep, extra holiday chores added to our already busy schedules, and there are only so many hours in the day to fit it all in.

I am not saying that we should skip our workouts, but I am saying that we need to be kind to ourselves. We must remember that there will be days we really do need a little extra sleep, and other days that we need to drag ourselves out of bed even though the warm bed calls to us like a mythical Siren.

My secret weapon to combat those wintertime blahs are my running buddies.  Even though my group this morning started out telling ourselves we wanted to run shorter miles, we decided to just get out there and make the decision based on how we were feeling.  Of course, once we got going we all decided to do the full 10 miles, but if we had stayed in bed, we would have missed the opportunity to remind ourselves about how much we enjoy running--even in the cold.  And the sunrise we witnessed this morning made the whole run worth every step.

​Another secret weapon to combat the wintertime blahs is to always have a race on the back burner.  If I don't have anything to train for, then I can always make the excuse to slack. Yesterday I signed up to run the Frosty Fifty 50K in North Carolina, which means that I need to get some long miles in or I am going to be hurting come race day on January 2nd.  Giving myself a real reason for getting up and out in the morning really provides me with that motivation I need when I am struggling with getting started.

I think that the most important thing to remember is that I am in this for the long haul.  I might have highs and lows but this is a healthy lifestyle decision and I will not quit on myself. I will continue to move forward despite the wintertime blahs--I just have to be more diligent about continuing the strategies that work for me and that keep me on the road flabulous!