The ones left behind

This story aired in the November 20, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.

Saturday is International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day. It’s a day that honors support, connection, and healing for families and friends who have lost their loved ones to suicide.

In this story, we hear from Palo Alto loss survivors as they navigate the complicated emotions around a loved one’s death and what it means for them to keep going.

Story Transcript:

I-YUN: Lynn and I had been an unlikely duo ever since we met 20 years ago.

She was the tomboy cool kid, rocking her pixie mullet and a pair of old Converse sneakers, playing hooky, and getting into trouble at school. Me? I was a textbook “good” student.

We went on very different paths after grade school, but still kept in touch over the years. We looked out for each other. When she found out that I was going through a rough breakup in college, she rode her scooter across Taipei City to see me every week.

After we graduated, we had decided to rent an apartment together, but a week before we were supposed to sign the lease, I stopped hearing from her.

Texts, calls, nothing.

Eventually, I saw a post on Lynn’s Facebook account, but it wasn’t her. It was her sister saying…

Lynn had passed away. She was 23 years old.

Later that night, a friend told me that Lynn had died by suicide.

I was completely devastated.

And I spent years trying to navigate the grief, guilt, and confusion that often come with being a survivor of suicide loss: Was I a bad friend? Why didn’t I know? Why couldn’t I stop her?

According to the American Association of Suicidology, these are actually really common feelings among survivors of suicide loss, and finding support groups and communities can help us find our way to healing

At the time, I tried to find support and resources, but a lot of them were about suicide prevention, less so about the ones left behind.

So I decided to reach out to other survivors of suicide loss. And I went to Palo Alto, California, to find them - The city has faced a tragically high rate of youth suicide for over a decade. - I wanted to see how they found strength, meaning, and hope among the grief.

MARY: I’m so sorry for leaving you out in the rain.

I-YUN: Nice to see you again.

MARY: Very nice to see you too. How’s it been going? Come on in.

I-YUN: Mary and Victor Ojakian have become strong advocates for suicide prevention since 2004. That was when the couple lost their son, Adam, to suicide while he was a student at UC Davis.

MARY: Oh, this is Adam. These two. This is… Let me see, where were we? We were actually in Japan then. This one is just in the house somewhere.

I-YUN: Adam’s photos are all around the house. He always had a big smile on his face.

VICTOR: He was about six foot four, dark hair, because of his Armenian heritage. Some of his friends, different people, call him a gentle giant. Adam died in, we didn't know it at the time. But, you know, subsequently learned, he basically died in a suicide cluster. He was the fifth of six students who took their lives over a period of a calendar year. 

I-YUN: Immediately after Adam’s death, Mary and Victor started getting calls and emails from people not only showing support, but also sharing their own experiences of going through the loss and pain.

VICTOR: The things that they held inside of them that they never felt like they had a right to talk about. Um, that was a shocker. It was an eye-opener that said, “We need to do something about this.”

I-YUN: So many people had gone through similar pain in silence. It made Mary and Victor want to channel their grief into advocacy work.

They’ve spent more than a decade fighting to make sure students across California colleges and universities can actually get the mental health support they need.

And when a suicide cluster happened in Palo Alto schools in 2009, the couple quickly got to work. They formed a committee with other survivors…And dozens of people from different backgrounds, from doctors to teachers, pastors, and even elected officials.

And within one year, they produced a suicide prevention plan for Santa Clara County.

MARY: Not one person missed one meeting. They were committed,  engaged, creative. They just keep you going.

I-YUN: Their work led to the passage of two bills that require all school districts in California to adopt suicide prevention policies.

VICTOR:  When we started 20 years ago, there were a handful of bills. It wasn't the issue du jour, and people shied away from it, partly because they're part of our culture, which stigmatizes this type of, uh, talking about mental health and suicide prevention. 

I-YUN: Now, social workers, counselors, and teachers are required to go through suicide prevention training. And the state mandates mental health education in middle and high school.

Right now, Mary and Victor are still very involved in Santa Clara County’s suicide prevention program. Their original is updated every single year.

And Victor is pushing for more policies around seniors’ mental well-being. Mary is building a more comprehensive online toolkit for anyone looking for mental health resources.

All of this started as a way to deal with their own feelings of loss and grief, as survivors. But it’s become something much bigger - breaking the stigma around suicide and saving lives.

VICTOR:  Some things are hard to do, but they're not harder than, um, losing somebody you care about. So that's never gonna change. I mean, I knew that from the beginning when I started doing the work. I used to tell myself silently, I, I guess I'm gonna just go to my grave doing this work. I don't, I don't see any other alternative. As long as I can do it, I'm going to do it.

I-YUN: Mary says, even though the pain may never truly go away, the relationship we have with our loved ones won’t be defined by grief.

MARY:  It may take a year or more. You’re never gonna be not grieving, but it's gonna be different and you're gonna be okay. You truly are.

I-YUN: After talking to Victor, Mary, and many other survivors, I realized how far I’ve come in my journey of grieving: From doubting and being ashamed of my grief to feeling validated in my pain and sharing my experience with other survivors.

There’s a lot of power in telling our stories and making our voices heard. Mary and Victor changed laws and saved lives because of it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do the same, but I know this is a start.

— — —

This story was originally reported and produced as an audio documentary in the audio program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Full version of the story first aired on KQED “Surviving Suicide Loss in Palo Alto.”

Resources:

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can get immediate, free, 24/7 support by calling or texting 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Mary and Victor Ojakian asked that we share two organizations they helped found and continue to volunteer with:

HEARD Alliance – promoting youth mental health and suicide prevention.

Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services Suicide Prevention Program – local prevention, training, and community initiatives.