Harpo & I Have a Christmas Wish For You

Love.

What a great gift!  One of "my favorite things for 2014!"

Matches every outfit.  Never have to clean it or take it back to the store.  Sometimes it can get messy, but we mean the love you carry and share in your heart regardless of what anyone else has said or done or taught you.  We all know better.  We all can show more love.  I know how true that is for me.

As for Harpo, my little sweet Labradoodle buddy, he's pretty close to perfect in the love and showing it category always.

That's what I aspire to be more like all the time.

Tail wagging, so excited to see and lick everyone, filled with love and happy to be on this earth just to make others happier.

May God or whatever you believe in fill you and the ones you love -- hopefully that's everyone, men, women, dogs, even cats.

Our wish -- LOVE yourself first.

Loving who you are, what you stand for, how you treat everyone, always keeping in mind how you'd hope to be treated and yes, it ALL comes back to that little four letter word.

L-O-V-E.

May your Christmas stockings and hearts be brimming over with a lot of love for you and everyone this year.  Show it.  Doesn't do much if it's in your heart but stays only there.

Spread it.  It's a beginning to reclaiming civility and reducing malaise, depression, mental illness and ultimately suicide caused by the fear, hate and everything that is the opposite of love.

It's what the universe needs now.

Merry Christmas,

Love,

Harpo and his owner

John Drury's Courage Compliment

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This Blog entry was originally published on June 23, 2016

by Kevin Roy

                                                                     

The late John Drury gave me the best compliment of my life.
"It took a lot of courage to do that," he said.
His words brought "A Son of Suicide," to a close.

Courage?
I was surprised to hear that word at first.

Until then, I hadn't thought of my decision to share the story of my mother's suicide to be a courageous act.

It started as my way of honoring my mother, Diane Marcus Roy.

It felt like something I had to do.  I didn't want her death to be in vain.

If anyone knew about courage, it was John Drury.  I started watching him while I was growing up in River Forest, a suburb just west of Chicago.

When he said those words to me with more than a million people watching "The ABC7 Chicago News at 10:00," few people, including me, knew that Drury had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. 

How right he was.

We saved lives.

Several viewers called to thank me.  Each one said he or she had plans to take their own lives but got help after seeing and hearing how suicide impacts those of us left behind, survivors of suicide, in such a unique way and for the rest of our lives.

In the days leading up to "A Son of Suicide," the station's promo was in heavy rotation during the important February sweeps.

Some people were questioning my motives before it aired.

They said I was exploiting my mother's tragedy to advance my career.

I will always be grateful to Ron Magers.

During his daily appearance on "The Roe Conn Show" on WLS-AM 890, Magers said, "Don't all of us try to give our best with the hope it might get us noticed and help advance our careers?"

I hope you also watch "Surviving Suicide," produced during my Fellowship with The Carter Center's Mental Health Journalism Program.

Both projects won Emmy Awards and many other journalistic honors.  "A Son of Suicide" won top honors from many mental health organizations locally and nationally.

But the reward that eclipses all of them and drives me to this day is helping people, improving and saving lives with journalism that matters.

It's been 22 years since I lost my mother.

The suicide rate keeps climbing, the stigma's often deadly grip grows stronger, but mental health reporting, especially on TV, barely exists.

I want to change that.

I know what it takes. 

Mental health reporting is a key to ending the stigma and stopping suicide.

Another key is love.

Take the Pledge

End the mental illness stigma.  Stop suicide.  Go to bringchange2mind.org/get-involved.