Karen's First Mother's Day Without Jason

We lost Jason Chrisawn almost a year ago, June 18th, 2004. He was a depressed and troubled young man that at his darkest hour, chose to take his own life. He was 33. His mom misses him this special day, the first Mother's Day without her one son, Jason Chrisawn.

Karen is made of pretty tough stuff and has weathered the emotional storm of this tragic lost sometimes better than I have. I only knew Jason for 15 years but saw him grow up from graduating from Fishburne High School to an accomplished businessman and welder, working all over the US. We thought he had found his niche even though he had bouts with depression that warranted us driving or flying some distance to get him to a doctor and get him on antidepresants.

I don't have or truly understand what they call "chronic depression" except that it is bad and you have to take something for it all your life. The downside to Jason was he would get to feeling better or OK and then get off his medication. Then he would make the slow descent back into that dark place we would find him where he literally could not take care of himself. That is the nature of depression as I understand it and when we found him a year ago, we could not find any bottles where he had refilled his prescriptions or the ones we sent him in the mail.

Jason was working in NC for Catapillar and we really thought he had found a true home with less travel involved. He had rented a house and had a room mate to help him with the expense and we visited him a time or two there outside Old Fort, NC. But people with depression can deceive you and pretend to be OK when they truly are not. They talk just like you and I are talking right now and you would never know the low place they had reached when they truly wanted to assure you they were OK. That was Jason's ilk, and he was the best at it.

The day he took his life, he called all of us on his cell phone and talked for a time, and with me about his truck and getting it fixed with the money I had sent him. He talked of work and what he was building for Catapillar, building a new type work station at each of the points on the assembly line and how happy the people were with his ideas about how the work stations should be. He (like his father in law) could build anything if they saw it once. It was truly a gift!

But one day his house of cards came crashing down when he got a ticket for a moving violation (which we found later) and we feel he was just afraid of the consequences and the possibilty of having missed a court date, of having to pay a big fine and/or some time in jail. We will never know the real answer!

He chose a day to call all his friends and family and talked about everything he was doing and how rosey his life was. This was his own way of deceiving himself and of course us, of how he really was. He then made the pain go away. He was 33.

Jason, we love you and miss you this Mother's day. We have a memorial for you Saturday June 18th, 2005 at Northminister Presbyterian Church in Hickory, NC. We will remember you again in this way. "We Love You!"..."And miss you!"
Dad Jeff and Mom Karen