Military suicide loss survivor Marie Weaver says whatever people fight for, there’s some grief behind it.
Marie Weaver was pregnant with her first child when her brother, Ben, an Army veteran, died by suicide in 2017, at the age of 42.
A father of two, Ben had lost his job, separated from his wife, and was dealing with mental health issues.
“It came to him feeling like he didn’t have a choice but to leave this world,” Marie says. “He had sent a text message to his friends. It didn’t make sense; it didn’t have punctuation. It said, ‘I want you to take care of my family for me.’ … He thought he was doing what was best for his family, for everybody who loved him.”
Ben’s visitation was held on a Saturday. Marie remembers standing in line for eight hours greeting people.
“There were probably 1,200 people who came—the line was wrapped around the block,” she says. “At the service, they had to have overflow seating. I remember thinking that I wish my brother had known. It was really unbelievable.”
Three months after Ben died, Marie and her husband Jonathan welcomed their son, whom they named Benjamin in his memory. The demands of parenting and a full-time job didn’t leave Marie much time to process her grief. But about five years later, she saw a friend post on Facebook that she was running 30 miles in 30 days to raise funds for Stop Soldier Suicide through their Facebook challenges. Marie felt like supporting veterans through a simple donation was something she could do—and needed to do.
“Eventually I felt like I didn’t have a choice (but to take action),” Marie says. “Look at any cause…whatever it is that people fight for, there is some grief behind it.”
Marie had never heard of Stop Soldier Suicide before seeing her friend’s fundraiser. But upon researching the organization and learning how many people were being helped through counseling and crisis planning, she thought supporting the mission could help save the lives of other U.S. veterans and service members.
“I wish I could just spend every day talking to people about mental health,” she says. “If people were more open about their emotions and could say, ‘I don’t feel good and I need some help’—for my brother, it was too late for him. But we had no idea he had been feeling this way for so long.”
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