I wrote varying forms of this on Facebook and in an email to friends and family. It didn’t feel right to me to continue this blog, however fledgling, without acknowledging the loss our family has recently suffered. Alex was a traveler and a writer, and I’ll continue this blog as way of honoring him.
It’s been a month since we lost Jordan’s younger brother, Alex, to suicide. A month of mourning, asking why, wondering what must have been going through his mind in those final moments, a month of watching Carrie, Jordan, and George manage this immensely painful loss with the utmost poise and grace.
Alex with Jurgen in April 2018.
Even though Alex struggled with depression for nearly all the years I knew him, we still have a lot of good, happy, memories – some from a long time ago (helping him with his high school math homework, he and Jordan teaching me to ski on ridiculously steep mogul runs at Winter Park) and some more recent (we went to New Mexico in May where he played endlessly with Alistair and doted lovingly on Jurgen, we talked about books, shared onion rings, and saw a giant rattlesnake). These are the ways I am choosing to remember him – and now I am realizing just how special they are, not just because he isn’t here anymore, but also because for someone battling through such chronic depression, these acts that you and I might take for granted, were monumental efforts for him.
We’re organizing donations to the Mental Health Center of Denver (MHCD) in Alex’s name. All donations in his name will go toward Glenarm Commons – a joint project between MHCD and St. Andrew’s (Carrie and George’s church). Glenarm Commons provides permanent housing to get people with mental health disabilities on their feet and off the streets. While Alex had the tremendous, unwavering support of his mother, Carrie, not everyone who suffers from a mental illness is so fortunate, and Glenarm Commons addresses that.
https://mhcd.org/support-us/
(Click “donate now” button, and in “Additional Comments” section of donation form, please specify that the gift is in memory of Alex Jones.)
