Swallowed by a toxic school environment

 "Lily’s death could have been prevented,”

Lily’s friends shared this with me months after her death.

How do I encapsulate in words, the absolute joy of being Lily's mother and the devastation of losing her? It feels impossible to accomplish through these mere characters on a white page. Nothing can show you or give you an understanding of the complete and utter shattering of all levels of my being, nor the destruction of my life, the lives of my family, friends, and community. Nothing can allow you to feel the depth of pain in my heart, nor the shattering of my being, nor the incredible loudness of her absence. Nothing can truly allow you to feel or understand the unbearable, near impossible work of surviving. Nothing will bring her back...ever...but through trying to speak for her, and for many who suffer as she did, I hope to transform this pain into positive change. Lily’s life mattered, she had incredible value as a human being based on her own amazingly bright and joyful personality, her tolerance, kindness, empathy, and love. Obviously like any parent who has lost a child, I would give anything to bring her back. My greatest wish is that I could go back in time and pull her out of school and protect her… but I cannot. I can only do my best to honor her and her story, and hope that it helps others who continue to struggle and suffer daily because of the hate and cruelty so prevalent in our world and the prevalence of toxic environments in our schools.

From birth, Lily was a joyful, bright, happy, empathic, loving and kind person. Growing up on a small farm, she was always at my side - being my helper - and she adored the many animals outside and inside our home. Lily could always be found with the animals or drawing. Art was her other love which began as soon as she could hold a crayon. This never diminished as she grew. In addition to her innate love of art, her passion for animals was embedded in her blood. She began horse lessons when she was five thanks to the generosity of loving neighbors Dick and Deb Walter. Over the years she developed into a solid enough rider that she had a summer job riding horses for our neighbors.  It was her dream job! It was with one of these neighbors - Mel Hare - that she enjoyed riding with the most. He liked to go her speed - fast! Before her death she spoke often about her desire to race with Mel in backcountry trips and her dreams of helping others through equine therapy. 

Her general outlook on life was incredibly optimistic and happy. She brought that shining, bright energy with her everywhere - and it impacted people. It was contagious! This was the person she was in her nature. When she realized she was a lesbian, this began to change. She came out to me and a few family members just before her 6th-grade year. She was honored and surrounded by love and support. Although she found a loving response at home, she began to notice more acutely how the world commonly treats those who are queer (I use this as a general term for anyone identifying LGBTQIA or non-binary). This was apparent in her observations of her peers, at school, in our community, our state and on the national level. She fell in love with Trevor Noah of The Daily Show after his episode on the issue of transgender bathroom use. His common sense and perspective on the issue (representing an understanding that the issue was and is about basic human rights) gave her hope. However, she saw daily examples of the opposite of his humanity, through the hate filled vitriol and discrimination, everywhere. This was especially true because we lived in Utah where discrimination is deeply institutionalized, and progress in this area is PAINFULLY slow! While she was alive there was a law in Utah called "No Promo Homo," which promoted discrimination of LGBTQIA youth in schools.  This impacted her deeply.  For her, it was so clear and simple that this was wrong and that this struggle was about basic human and civil rights. After seeing daily examples of just how hateful many people are toward the group she had realized she was a part of, she began to struggle. She began to see a world without hope - a world that was grey. She suffered and was reminded every day at school when observing her peers and the staff, when observing people in general, or when watching the news,  that this suffering was something she would continue to experience because of her identity as a lesbian. The way people acted, spoke and believed, hurt her deeply. Her hopelessness grew as she witnessed continued evidence of people’s judgment, hatred, and discrimination. She was so angry at the world for this cruelty, often justified through their own belief systems. It seemed simple to her - everyone deserves human rights and respect; people should be judged solely by the kind of person they are - by how kind they are - nothing else. 

The change in Lily happened fairly quickly...moving her from a bright, joyful and happy young girl to a depressed and self-harming one in just over a year. The shift was more subtle at first and then intensified radically upon entering middle school. When she revealed her cuts to me after the first week or two of school, our household was sent into a whirlwind of panic. I was terrified! I knew from my experience as a teacher with self-harming students, that there was a strong connection between self-harm and suicide. I wanted to protect her, to help her… she was my baby and like most parents, my biggest concern was for her safety and survival. We quickly found a therapist who had experience with these issues. She loved her and seemed to make improvements quickly. This gave me great hope that she would be okay, she would make it, that WE WOULD GET HER THROUGH THIS! Outside of school Lily was surrounded by adults who loved and supported her, and I believed that with that and therapy, we could hold her up and help her find the path of surviving and using her voice to change the world. My own therapist later made the analogy that these supports are like buoys. I like this analogy because you can rebuild a foundation, but if a critical buoy fails, someone drowns. It was not until it was too late, that I realized how truly critical the buoy of social life, peers and school is for adolescents; that it has more power over them and importance than the love flowing from home.  

Lily complained often about what she witnessed at school. Her friend who is transgender was often told they were “a girl” and that their name was not their chosen name. Often heckling like this occurred in front of teachers who did nothing to stop it. Thus reinforcing her belief that they agreed with what was being said. 

Other teachers were clearly filled with judgement and hate for anyone like her or non-binary.  Although I encouraged her to report what she was observing, she adamantly refused. She said “snitches get stitches,” and “I will not get on their bad list.” While these statements created concern about the climate of reporting in the school, I agreed not to report it myself because she stated she would kill herself if I did. I agreed to wait as long as she was communicating and was going to anonymously report the teachers and students she observed discriminating and bullying the most.  Like all parents of self- harming youth, I felt powerless and held hostage by the fear of the worst possibility. Even after being chosen as student of the month for her tolerance, she didn’t feel she could safely speak up. Only after her death, did I realize that her experiences of bullying at school, as well as witnessing bullying of others queer and straight,  directly created this feeling of a lack of safety and hopelessness she felt would never end. I did not realize how truly toxic the environment was in her school and how it was literally sucking all hope, all faith in people loving her and accepting her as she was out of her. Again, this was heightened by living in Utah, where there are very few examples of open support, love and TRUE acceptance of the queer community. Utah is a state along with many others which are truly in the dark ages when it comes to their humanity. 

Prior to her death, although I was terrified, I had a deep and abiding faith we would get her through it. This belief was reinforced by the fact that for the month before her death, Lily was doing a lot of ‘future talk’. She spoke of the upcoming Valentine’s dance she was excited about, and discussed certainty she wanted to help others through art therapy and equine therapy. She had also been teaching herself Farsi, after reading the story of a young Persian girl who realizes she is a lesbian.  Dreams of visiting Iran filled her with a light I hadn't seen in awhile. All of these things along with the reduction in cutting filled me with hope and certainty she would make it through this difficult time. 

Only a week and a half before her death, I had taken her on a ‘mother-daughter trip’ and although she was still clearly frustrated with things at school, we had fun and she expressed excitement about some upcoming events, such as the dance and that she was going to spend some time with her Auntie and with other friends the next weekend. She hadn’t cut herself for a while and had replaced it with expressing her feelings through her art. While this art was often quite disturbing, through family sessions with her therapist she informed me that it was helping her avoid self-harming. She had found a new outlet for her pain and suffering. Her art was often of wolves or dogs who were lacerated, stabbed and wounded and most notably with their mouths bound and tied. Once she told me angrily, “you don’t like my art anymore!” Yes it scared the hell out of me. I told her it upset me because it looked as though she was glorifying hurting animals. Her response was, “no, they are surviving!!” It was only after her death that I fully understood how much these drawings revealed how she felt...cut up, wounded and suffering while being unable to speak of it. Like many others, she did not feel safe or able to speak of what she was seeing and experiencing at school and wouldn't report it because she feared the repercussions of doing so. This fear was firmly instilled by others who had reported and experienced extremely negative fallout from it. The culture of the school for anyone like her was toxic.  

We had established a gauging system for where she was at emotionally. In regular daily check-ins, she gave no indication that she was down at the level of concern. Most days were a four or five (with ten meaning she was doing great - very happy, and 1 meaning she was actively going to attempt suicide). She genuinely seemed like she was improving because she had gone from many days at a 3 to more often a 5, with sometimes even a 7. All the caring adults around her, including her therapist, felt she was doing better. In addition to future talk, she was using new tools to cope with her feelings… instead of cutting, she was releasing them through art. While these images were often disturbing - I was glad that she was using a healthier outlet for her feelings. All of these things gave us hope. In discussing reporting, we were trying to help her find a way to do so without feeling she was risking too much or putting herself in the spotlight. 

And then the very fabric of our reality was ripped away at 6:30 the morning of Jan. 26, 2017 when I found her dead. If you have never experienced this horror, you are likely to feel as I did before that moment, concerned but because the thought is too overwhelming to even think about, you push it away. Only those who have experienced this truly unbearable pain understand that it is so much worse than your best possible attempts to perceive what it might be like. The destruction is indescribable. Every aspect of my being was shattered, destroyed… decimated. I was broken in every way. The mental, emotional and physical anguish and obliteration that comes with losing a child to suicide is the experience of annihilation!! We wracked our brains, poured through journals and notes, talked with friends and family trying to understand WHY??? What triggered this? Why didn't she say anything?  Why didn't she ask for help? Why that day? Because suicide is such a torment and so complex, we ran through the layers of what we did wrong, how we failed her, how we lost her. Every moment was filled with overwhelming pain and confusion. It is quite literally a hell that consumes every cell of your being. She was my baby… my life, my love, my heart and like her brother - my greatest treasure. Why wasn’t our love enough to save her? What didn’t we see? What did we do wrong? The questions and pain were so great... bigger than it felt possible to endure. Each moment was completely filled with suffering and sorrow. Every basic function, a struggle.  Breathing, eating... just staying alive, a struggle. My heart was a shattered landscape of desolation, and so...so heavy. It felt impossible to move through each moment, to do anything, to live. 

Although I knew that what Lily witnessed caused her to feel depressed and to feel hopeless, I had no idea until later what she had personally experienced. On the day Lily's death was announced, many students reported to the office what happened to her the day before. For reasons that will never make sense, the Principal chose not to communicate this with me or my family. The mind-shattering agony of trying to understand ‘why’ or what the tipping point was, lifted when I found out. Not the agony of losing her of course, but the mental and emotional torment of struggling to make the pieces we knew fit with her being swallowed by suicide. It was cruel that this information was not shared with us by the school; common decency and basic ethics should have made them ensure that we knew.  And it was ethically, and professionally wrong that she did not report it to the investigators, considering they asked for this information and that there was the possibility that there was cyberbullying as well. 

Following this, I was bombarded day after day with students, former students, parents, coworkers in the district, community members, all sharing their story of bullying in the middle school. It became extremely clear that there was a problem with how bullying was handled and addressed in that school. I reached out to the principal to discuss what happened and received no response. Then I began reaching out to the school board to discuss the problems and seek solutions. Because they were in the process of hiring a new superintendent, I waited until they had made that decision to proceed. The new superintendent was very concerned and ready to examine this issue in our district. In a presentation for the school board members, I gave information about what was not working and solutions to try to address the problems.  The material was based on the experiences shared with me by others, on Lily’s experience and my own personal experience. Because I had taught in the high school for the past three years, I had insight into some underlying policy, reporting, training and accountability issues. Since that meeting, the superintendent and the board have all worked hard to address the problems and adopt policies and practices which will do more to keep ALL students safe at school. Although there is more to be done, they have made a good start!

The community has responded with genuine care and concern, with a deep and heartfelt desire to improve the situation facing the youth in our community. Many groups and individuals are working to address the issues of discrimination, bullying and adolescent suicide. Coalitions have been formed and people are trying to work together to ensure the safety net is strengthened. There are many people who continue to strive to continue to change the culture of the school from one that was toxic and corrosive, to one which is rooted in and conveys love and acceptance for ALL children, especially those most at risk. Although the community has responded with action, the underlying issues in Utah and many other states must be addressed at the legislative level if there is going to be any real, lasting and effective change. Words and action must come into alignment. If the words say we love, value and protect ALL children, this cannot be just nice words, it must include accountability and REAL, visible action!

As you can see from the infographic on the main page, Utah’s adolescent suicide rate (ages 10-17) is more than twice the national average (2014). This is unacceptable. In response to Lily's death and all I've learned from it, I started Lily’s Hope, llc, as a social impact company to help others address these issues locally, statewide and nationally. Originally I intended to visit with school boards throughout the state to encourage them to adopt similar changes. Then after speaking with people working in other districts, it became clear that many were simply sweeping these problems under the rug, blaming them on "high altitude," or were resistant to do anything.  Utah suffers (alonh with many other states) with the serious problem of deeply institutionalized discrimination! Change, I realized, would in many areas of the state, have to be mandated. Part of the work of Lily’s Hope, is to advocate that the Necessary Components be mandated and required for all school districts. These components, which are critical elements for shifting the culture of schools from toxic to one where all students can thrive, will indeed save lives. These elements were not present in our district and which if adopted and implemented.  They are critical to addressing any bullying, cyberbullying, hazing, school safety, and suicide reduction policies or plans.   However,  none of us can do this alone. It will take a collective voice to get this into legislation. See the state advocacy page for more info. 

We are all exposed daily to bullying and meanness so prevalent in our culture. While this shouldn't be ignored, examples of kindness and empathy need to be celebrated and shared. Kindness, like hate, discrimination and violence, can spread in a contagious way. I hope to honor people like Lily, who could not bear to see the suffering of others and choose instead to spread empathy and kindness in this world. Every person is important and we need to continue to spread love, kindness, value and acceptance to help our society heal from the great suffering that is all too prevalent for so many people. YOU are the ones planting seeds of kindness and change! Please do this every day, in small and large ways. 

Overall, I seek to increase reflection, kindness, acceptance, and humanity in our culture to transform the toxic situation Lily faced at school, which is all to common.  Our society clearly and horrifically values profit and gain for a small fraction of people over basic human well-being Through this site and through every day of the rest of my life, I will work to change this.  It’s all about kindness which is rooted in a fundamental condition of caring about people over profit. And it begins with YOU...please help me create change! None of this work will ever bring my incredible daughter back, but it will hopefully help save yours, or others who struggle and suffer as she did. Lily and her life had the greatest value to me and that value should not be diminished by the fact that she was a lesbian. I loved and will always love her, just as any mother loves their children. Being a lesbian was a part of her, and a part that caused her great suffering...but that is only because of the hate, fear, lack of understanding, and discrimination she witnessed and experienced -  not because she was any less valuable as a result of her sexual identity. ALL of our children deserve to feel valued and loved for the kind of person they are, not devalued, or unprotected because of any letter they identify with. Please help the many people, the many mothers crying out, the suffering youth screaming out for us to WAKE UP, and help make the world a safe, healthy and loving place for all - where we can all feel valued!