Jesse Kaesberg spent Christmas week with his parents in their Lynnwood home.
Two days after the holiday, he drove to the Aurora Bridge in Seattle and ended his life.
This weekend, Kaesberg’s parents will remember their 26-year-old son by lighting a candle under the bridge.
The couple plan to be among about 1,000 people walking in the state’s first Out of the Darkness suicide awareness event, a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The walk begins at sundown Saturday and finishes about 20 miles later after dawn Sunday.
“I get a lot stronger and re-energized knowing that I can help make a difference,” Kaesberg’s father, John, said.
He said he’ll pause about halfway through the walk to light a luminary in his son’s memory.
“As far as I’m concerned, my son is a hero for hanging in there as long as he did,” John Kaesberg said.
Organizers hope the walk will help raise nearly $1 million, enough to open a regional chapter of the national group.
“Over time, our hope is that we can generate enough awareness that we will see an impact on suicide rates,” the foundation’s executive director, Robert Gebbia, said.
Each year, about 80 people take their own lives in Snohomish County, and suicide is the third leading cause of death, according to the county medical examiner’s office.
Statewide, more than 800 people kills themselves and 32,000 die nationally, Gebbia said.
Many more attempt suicide. Police, paramedics, family and friends help save the vast majority of people who try to take their own lives, he said.
“A lot of suicide attempts are people reaching out for other things,” Snohomish County Fire District 1 emergency medical services Capt. Bob Eastman said. “They’re harming themselves to get attention, to get the help they need.”
Research shows that depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses are the underlying cause in 90 percent of self-inflicted deaths, Gebbia said.
Kaesberg suffered from bipolar disorder, his family said.
He had been doing well managing his illness, said Frances Kaesberg, his mother. During the Christmas holiday, he seemed to be in a better mood.
“In hindsight, he was suicidal,” she said. “It’s usually when they start to feel better, it’s dangerous.”
She said too much stigma surrounds mental illness and people want to deny that it’s a problem.
“The daily pain that they go through is much more than any of us can understand,” she said.
Families and rescuers struggle during suicide attempts and when people die, said Brian Zelmer, a division chief with the Everett Fire Department. Because suicidal people can be dangerous to themselves and others, police often arrive first when help is called.
“Emotionally disturbed persons can be highly dangerous for us. We don’t know what they’re thinking,” Mountlake Terrace police Sgt. Doug Hansen said. “We often put ourselves into a high-risk situation to help them.”
On Saturday, Mary Reynolds will be walking in memory of her son, Shaun, who died nearly 10 years ago. He was 20.
“You just don’t talk about it and we need to,” she said.
Awareness from this weekend’s walk may draw more people forward to speak about suicide, Reynolds said.
“I just hope that we can help some kids and adults, too,” she said.
Last summer, Edythe White’s daughter EmmaLee, now 6, was visiting her father Caleb Gillihan in Eastern Washington when he hanged himself. He was 25.
“He died a week before she started kindergarten,” White said. “It was a big loss for her and she talks about him every day.”
White is walking for EmmaLee and for Gillihan.
“I look at my daughter and see a walking, talking version of her father,” the Everett woman said. “She is what makes me want to walk ‘Out of the Darkness’ and shed some light on this illness, and get people education so they too can see the next light of day.”
Learn more
To donate in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or to learn more about the Out of the Darkness overnight walk, go to www.outofthedarkness.org.
Shaun Reynolds
Jesse Kaesberg.
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