About

On September 14, 2014 our lives were forever altered.  Our son Arthur took his life in the early morning hours.  Now I want people to understand that he was not a troubled kid, he was not using drugs, he did not have any signs of a kid thinking about killing himself.  He was always thinking of others, always smiling and his laughter was the most amazing thing you ever heard.

Artie and his younger brother Wolfgang had always been homeschooled. A blessing for me because I spent more time with the boys than would have been possible had they gone to public school.  But in our quest for creating a fun homeschool group, we inadvertaintly allowed a mean, jealous woman and her family to join our group and this is where we believe Artie’s problems started.  This family had a son close to our boys age and they all became fast friends. Arthur and this boy were instant best friends.  Being with all of the kids in our group, all of them, even the younger ones made Arthur very happy.  He love that the younger kids looked up to him.  Eventually I started noticing remarks this mom would make about how spoiled the boys and I were. How much my husband doted on me seemed to bother her.  Earlier this year Arthur met a young girl that he immediately had a crush on.  He fell fast and hard for her.  The mother of Artie’s best friend wanted her son to date this young girl and we think the fact that she liked Arthur set her off on a mission to destroy things for us. And she did.  She told this young girls family things about our boy that were not true, she took away something that meant the world to him. Our homeschool group would dissolve over night.  The relationship with this girl slowly broke down, he lost his best friend as well as the friendships of some of the other families that had been a part of our lives for some time.  We still do not know exactly what all this woman said to these families.  Slowly over the next few months things seem to be back on track for Arthur. He was seeing a new girl, getting ready to start drivers Ed,  genuinely looking forward to what the future had in store for him.  He was involved in larping (live action role playing) which he loved and it quickly became his main interest.

That Saturday night I dropped the kids at the mall and everything seemed fine.  Picked them up, took one of the kiddos home and drove the boys and myself to our house. Arthur said he had seen his past girlfriend at the mall and they talked and all was good.  We talked about how much he liked this new girl he was seeing as well. He made plans for the next day, had his things laid out and even planned on picking up a friend on the way to the park for Larping.  He took selfies that night smiling and flexing in the mirror.  Sometime between 1 am and 3 am he killed himself in his room.  We don’t know if something happened after we all said goodnight.
My mission now is to make sure:

1) families pay attention to what they might think are just “teenage” things that will go away. Sometimes they are not

2) if you kids hear someone say anything about suicide or hurting themselves, tell someone, anyone! You are not helping by keeping the secret. If someone had just picked up the phone and told someone Arthur might still be here.

3) kids and adults don’t throw the word Suicide around like a fad. People use it so much that when someone is truly considering it it gets over looked as an idle threat. Sometimes it’s not..