In April of 2010, the Robbins family lost their son Jonathan to suicide. He was 22. His Mom, Kathy, called him “her sunshine” nearly his whole life. The “Let the Sun Shine Run” is a 2.2 mile run/walk that sheds a light on suicide, its survivors, and mental health.

All event proceeds are donated to the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, with the goal of everyone being empowered to live full, happy, and productive lives. Cures and continual advances in medicine bring hope to all those suffering.

This year’s event is the 11th annual and will be held Saturday, April 24 at 9am at St. Boniface Church in Cold Spring. Our family will be ready to walk in Jackson’s memory and look forward to seeing familiar faces at the starting line.

Registration information is here.

I often wonder what people are thinking when they say, “You’ll get over it.”

Sometimes it sounds to me as if they are talking about a case of mumps or my despair at income tax time.

But what can they mean when they say it about grief? Maybe they mean that grief is just an interruption in life. Their theory seems to be that life is basically happy -- buying stuff, working, watching TV -- but that a time of death and grief is an unnatural and sad time in that happy life. I can’t agree with that view.

Time can lessen the hurt; the empty place we have can seem smaller as other things and experiences fill our life; we can forget for periods and feel as if our loved one didn’t die; we can learn to remember the good and hold on to that.

But we cannot “get over it,” because to get over it would mean we were not changed by the experience. It would mean we did not grow by the experience. It would mean that the death made no difference in our life.

No, we don’t get over it. We change and grow. Our life has a difference which is ours alone. Perhaps we can help each other make that difference, the kind of difference that increases the world’s supply of compassion, love and healing.