Transforming Pain into Purpose: A Journey of Love, Loss, and Inspiring Change

Grief Gave Me Purpose. Here's What I Did With It.

I wrote the first version of this post within weeks of losing Maddie. I revised it on her eighth anniversary. I'm sharing it again now, just after her eleventh.

Three versions of the same grief. Three versions of me trying to make sense of it.

What's changed is what I've built because of her. The MentorWell exists because of what this loss taught me about paying attention. Read it knowing that.

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Does the hurting ever stop? I don't know because I'm not even close to being there yet. A big part of me wants the pain to go away but not at the cost of the memories. The memories are what I cherish, what I hold onto when I want to feel close to Maddie.

I felt this two months after Maddie's death, and this is still how I feel today, over eleven years after her death.

We tragically lost our daughter Maddie on April 11th, 2015. What I have experienced since that day has been unimaginable. My youngest son said to me, "Dad, I've seen you cry about 50 times in my life, two years ago and about 49 times in the months immediately following Maddie's death." It's true. Eleven years after the fact, I still well up several times a week.

In the first two months following our loss of Maddie, I was more emotional than I was in the first weeks after her death. My feeling of loss was more apparent than ever. In the first weeks following Madeline's service, I had such clarity and focus. I had never been more productive and efficient at work. I almost felt guilty. Slowly, the dark clouds started to set in over the next few weeks, and my once crystal-clear vision became muddied. Each day was a new experience, and I was unsure what the next day would bring.

Looking back, I understand it now. The anxiety I had been carrying for months before Maddie died lifted the moment the thing I feared most actually happened. There was nothing left to brace for. That's where the clarity came from. It wasn't strength. It was the temporary absence of dread.

The depression arrived a few weeks later. Quiet at first, then everywhere. I didn't know what I was feeling or which direction I was falling. I just knew the ground wasn't where I'd left it.

Friends, family and strangers felt this need to ask me about it, for not acknowledging Maddie would almost be disrespectful. People wanted to help me somehow, but they weren't sure how, and honestly, I'm not sure how they could've either.

We saw incredible acts of kindness. People had dropped off prepared dinners and just helped to make life more manageable. People dropped off gifts, food, pictures and notes of kindness. People offered to carpool the kids to sports and school events. It made my life much easier. At times I wondered, "How did I cope with all this stuff previously?" I guess we just did.

In that first month, I saw what the power of social media was capable of doing. I had my first post go viral. I don't think it was because it was Pulitzer-worthy, but that our family tragedy had become an important topic in conversations between parents and kids, teachers and students, and friends to friends. This helped to destroy the stigma about mental illness. It also gave me a greater awareness of a community of suicide survivors. This was a membership I'd rather not belong to. Unfortunately, I did.

Because of what we'd been through with Maddie's death, people wanted to share their darkest and most personal secrets with me. On some level, I felt like a priest taking confession. I don't say this to be facetious, but I find that many people deal with some serious issues.

The other thing that startled me was how many people faced mental illness issues and continue to do so today. They may be dealing with depression personally or have a loved one that has been deeply affected by depression or anxiety. The positive takeaway is that people were seeking or have sought help for their illnesses. The bigger problem remains on getting access to existing follow-up programs. Navigating the system is proving challenging for many of these people. This was the challenge that we faced with Maddie and her illness.

I don't think the hurting will ever stop, and a part of me doesn't want it to. So much passion and purpose have come from this tragedy. The pain keeps you focused. The pain gives you resolve. The pain allows some stars to shine brighter for the benefit of others.

What I didn't know then, and know now, is that the warning signs were there before we lost Maddie. Not obvious ones. Not the kind that announce themselves. The quiet kind. The ones that are easy to explain away because explaining them away feels safer than what the alternative might mean.

That's what keeps me up at night. Not the grief, though that hasn't left. It's the knowing.

I've spent the years since talking to thousands of parents. What I hear, over and over, is the same thing I lived. They noticed something. They weren't sure. They didn't want to overreact. They waited.

I'm not telling you this to frighten you. I'm telling you because awareness is not the same as panic. Paying closer attention to your kid is not the same as assuming the worst.

The MentorWell exists for that space between "everything's probably fine" and "I don't know what to do." Most parents live in that space and have no one to help them navigate it.

If something about your teen has you quietly unsettled, that feeling is worth paying attention to. Not later. Now.

Take The Teen Signal Check. You’ll thank me later