Shrewsbury couple hopes daughter's suicide teaches other children to seek help
Content Warning: The following article discusses suicidal feelings.
SHREWSBURY – Greg Wolfus looks back on life with countless stories of joyous adventures, silliness and good times with his wife Danielle, daughter Zoe and younger son Isaac.
They were close. They were happy. And then, suddenly—on August 27, 2020—Zoe was dead. She died by suicide at 16 years old.
"Our life was awesome and we recognized it all the time. I didn't need this pain to make me realize how good my life was," Greg said.
Greg and Danielle still wonder what they had missed.
"That's very common, we've learned, for survivors of suicide," Danielle said. "What did I miss? What did I do wrong? As a parent, how could this have happened under my roof?"
What they learned in Zoe's journals was that she was hiding her anguish. She thought that her brain was a burden. She worked to reassure them that she was fine.
"She even wrote in her journal, 'I'm not feeling myself but I'm making sure that I go into the living room every day to sit with my family so they don't worry about me,'" Danielle said.
Zoe thought that she was protecting the two people who would have done anything to protect her.
Two years earlier, when Zoe was 14, a friend's parents notified Greg and Danielle about an Instagram post of Zoe's that raised concern. When they asked Zoe about it, she acknowledged the post. She was evaluated in the emergency room and, soon after, began taking medication and going to therapy. After a period of time, she convinced everyone she was feeling better.
"That was the last time we knew she was having issues," Danielle said.
Danielle said that the hardest thing now is living with the guilt of not realizing how much Zoe was suffering. But Zoe's parents weren't the only ones who thought she was doing well.
The group of friends who met with WBZ-TV at Shrewsbury's Prospect Park say they were shocked to learn she had died. Carolyn Salvemini couldn't believe it.
"I just kept saying to myself, 'She's really gone.' Someone who's in your life for so much of high school who's just gone," she said. "We hadn't seen her for so much of COVID. At the same time, it was like, I'm never going to see her again."
The girls, who are graduating from Shrewsbury High School, say Zoe was good at everything. She was kind, caring, creative and fun. They also say that Zoe put tremendous pressure on herself to achieve academically. Zoe's parents agree.
"She was a perfectionist, always very hard on herself even though we always said that it's not the grades that matter to us. It's that you're happy, you're healthy. But it mattered to her," Danielle said.
After Zoe's death, people in the community began talking more about mental health and, specifically, what young people need. Right now, throughout Massachusetts, there aren't enough counselors to meet a critical demand.
Greg and Danielle point to the Shrewsbury counseling center as proof. They say there is an 11-month waiting list. When people are in crisis, they wonder, how can they wait eleven months? The couple strongly supports more mental health education in schools, perhaps as young as elementary school, and definitely in middle school and high school.
Danielle wants kids to feel that they can open up, without judgement, when they are struggling.
"There's a disease called cancer and there's a disease called mental illness. It's all OK to talk about," Danielle said.
They also hope that talking about mental illness will help to remove a stigma that prevents many people from seeking help. Danielle says parents should talk to their kids - a lot.
"Ask them how they are. Ask them how they're feeling emotionally. It's okay to ask if they're struggling," she said, nothing she and her husband did have those discussions with Zoe.
"We had a fabulous relationship. She was just incredibly secretive about some things that we were not aware of," Greg said.
He wishes that people would show one another more kindness.
"People need help. And unless you can find a way to show your vulnerabilities to everybody, other people will hide their vulnerabilities," Greg said.
The couple finds comfort in nature, in their community in Shrewsbury, and in a project called Zoe's Rocks. After George Floyd's death, Zoe expressed her sadness over racial injustice and her support for the Black Lives Matter movement by painting rocks.
After her death, Zoe's friend Brian Alperson began painting rocks in her memory. Now, there are rocks all over the world (even in the Pacific Ocean) that serve as small memorials and a source of support to the people who discover them.
Greg remembers how much fun he and Zoe had the day before she died. They painted and drew, he helped Zoe who was learning to drive. They talked and laughed.
"Zoe was 16 years of awesome," he said.
Looking out at the beauty of a garden in the park, he searches for hope.
"I can't reconcile the past. I'm not even sure I can accept it. But I have another child who means the moon and the stars to me. And I would like to find hope so that I can live a fruitful life forward," he said.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or for more resources visit their website. For more mental health resources, click here.