To the chagrin of some, for the last month I've been focusing on mental health and depression and loss and suicide. I totally get that these are not sexy topics. I get that these are not comfortable topics. I get that we are already shouldering a lot with respect to the weightiness of Coronavirus and the multiplicity of ways it is impacting us. It is a lot . . . to say the least. We want it all to go away . . . right now. We're tired of hearing about it. We're tired of watchi

This week in the news, it was reported that calls into Suicide and Help Hotlines went up by 8,000%. You read that right. Not 80%. Not 800%. But 8,000%. According to the Orange County Register, Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Center in Los Angeles took 22 COVID-19 related calls in February, and one month later, in March, that number skyrocketed to 1,800 calls. To say that people are mentally, emotionally and psychologically struggling is an understatement. This struggle; th

“My father committed suicide this morning,” are the piercing words I heard last Tuesday afternoon one minute into the conversation when I called to say hello and check in on a dear friend. NO! You’ve gotta be kidding me! Suicide! There's no freakin' way! This is not real. You did not just say suicide?! What the hell! is all I could say because never in a million years did I ever expect to hear someone on the other end of the phone tell me that my friend was gone. But he was.