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;EVEN ONE LESS
Following the death of her oldest son to suicide in 2021, she and other family members were approached about setting up a non-profit. The death of her oldest son made Debby relive 10 years earlier, in 2011 when she lost her youngest son at age 30, also to suicide. Her only 2 children, both died by suicide, 10 years apart.
A parent is not supposed to bury their child, no matter the circumstances, cause of death, or their age. That isn’t the natural order of things. It was and still is a nightmare for families to live through.
Debby’s oldest son, Darrell, had survived the self-inflicted gunshot but had coded during surgery. Because Darrell was an organ donor the family decided to leave him on life support to allow time for the organ donor organization, Life Gift, to arrange all of the organ recipients, surgical teams, aircraft, and pilots. Multiple transplant teams were staged at several different locations across the country.
“The organization required for this all seemed overwhelming and due to weather delays for one team, we had braced ourselves for one time to disconnect but then because of the illness of a scheduled pilot, everyone and everything had to be rescheduled for 12 hours. Waiting was so difficult but knowing the recipients’ lives would be saved or drastically changed sent a strong message to us that the death of my son, the father to his children, 18, 16, and 9 years old at the time, gave us some amount of peace.”
Within minutes following the tribute with a Donor Flag raising ceremony at the hospital honoring Darrell, ticktock of the family’s 5-day journey began flooding social media. The entire family had taken pictures of Darrell throughout the 5 days in the hospital contributing to the TikToks. They were all in agreement that they had to do all they could publicly in an attempt to make all of this stop for other families. The visual images were a strong voice displaying reality. Suicide was real. They were not exploiting their dad, they were intent on doing anything they could to stop others from seeing these images themselves or imagining their loved ones seeing them like this. Debby’s nephew Burl already had 50k followers through his FlyingWRanch TikTok. In less than 48 hours, 1 Tiktok went viral with 2.4 million views.
So many people were reached and the family, while making funeral arrangements, watched the Tiktoks go viral. Messages from viewers of how the visuals of suicide sent them strong messages, many perhaps impacting their decision to stay strong and not choose suicide. That was enough to feed the family’s hunger to do all they could to reach as many people as possible. “Some messages were so heart-wrenching. We were not the only family going through this. Too many! It has to stop.”
The reality of a non-profit came to fruition due to an unexpected chain of events that provided the needed funds to initiate the legal channels to create a non-profit. God was opening doors that we could not ignore.
There is a stigma surrounding mental health. No one should have the mindset to believe a permanent solution, like suicide, is the answer to a temporary problem. Suicide is so final and leaves families churning in doubt, despair, and questions including woulda – shoulda – and coulda’s.”.
As Burl said, “We aren’t so naive to think we are going to stop all suicides but even one less may be achievable.”
Fundraising is in the early planning stages to hold an auction in the Midland area, taking advantage of her nephew Burl and his wife Stacey who are both auctioneers. ;EVEN ONE LESS Board members offer a wide spectrum of creativity, business, mental health awareness, and education. All support the family with their own talents. Board members Debby Sifuentes, Burl Stricker, Dr. Bruce Wilson, Ed.D, Rhonda Shirley, and Rooster McConaughey are excited to see how God is going to grow their organization but even more, reassured at the changes that will take place because they chose to share their journey in hopes others would not have to live through this.
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