Trekking to honour son
Warning: This story deals with the topic of suicide.
Every day for a year after Kerri Bowman lost her son Jordan to suicide, she thought about ending her own life.
Her world changed when she got a call in November 2017 to say Jordan was dead. She arrived home to find an ambulance and his friends lining the driveway, and her worst fears were confirmed.
‘‘I thought, ‘My son’s gone, I shouldn’t be here’. I really fought it.
‘‘I couldn’t see a future. All I had was darkness, I had nothing in front of me.’’
Bowman went over and over everything she had ever done. Picking apart their conversations, all the times she had been hard on her son. ‘‘I was trying to piece it together, because I wanted an answer.’’
Bowman was scrolling through Facebook last year when she came across a picture of Jordan and a friend walking the Inca Trail in Peru. It was something she had always wanted to do, and she was devastated that she would never do it with her son.
Then a post about the Inca Trail Challenge, an initiative of the Mental Health Foundation, came up. She just knew it was something she was meant to do.
Bowman said that since she began planning for the trip last September, it had given her a reason to live. She had to work at letting go of her guilt over Jordan’s death.
‘‘Until then, all I was doing was planning how to go without impacting the people around me, because I knew the impact it has, and I didn’t want to put others through that.
‘‘I have gone from planning daily how I was going to end my life, to climbing a hill in Peru.’’
In mid-September, Bowman and her close friend Pauline Matthews will spend five days trekking to Machu Picchu. In the last year, they have raised $7500 for the Mental Health Foundation and connected with many others whose lives have been affected by suicide.
Jordan, a 19-year-old building apprentice, was loved by his family and friends and had the world at his feet, Bowman said.
But she thinks he struggled with feeling like he was good enough. He had high expectations of himself, and told his mother that she didn’t understand the pressure he was under.
‘‘I think there were a lot of little things for Jordan, and I think he just sort of disengaged himself from talking with me.’’
When Jordan’s relationship ended in the days before his death, Bowman was worried about him. He told her that he was fine, and that he didn’t want to talk about it.
‘‘He was saying little things. It’s only when I pieced them altogether afterwards that it made sense.
‘‘I wasn’t picking up on it because I didn’t even know he was in that space.’’
Empty photo frames lean against the walls of Bowman’s Nelson home. She bought them to fill with photos of Jordan, but almost two years after his death, it is still too difficult.
Taking on the Inca Trail is a physical challenge, but the last year of fundraising was challenging in a different way. Bowman and Matthews have sold car raffle tickets, held sausage sizzles, rattled collection buckets and hosted other events. They have shared Jordan’s story, talking openly about mental health and suicide.
Recently released statistics show that New Zealand’s suicide figures have reached their highest ever level, with 685 people dying in the year to June 30.
In Nelson and Marlborough, 20 people died from suicide in the
2018-19 year, up from 12 deaths the year before.
Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall released the provisional suicide statistics last Monday, showing that there were 17 more deaths than in the previous year – an increase of 2.5 per cent. Of those, 68 per cent were men.
There had also been an increase in the number of young people dying by suicide, particularly those in the 15 to 19 age group, where numbers rose from
53 to 73 over the same period.
Bowman said she wanted people to be as open about their mental health as they were about their physical health.
‘‘So many people have been in that place themselves and have never talked about it.
‘‘We are never going to get anywhere if we don’t talk about it and try and understand why.’’
The challenge has given Bowman something to focus on in the last year.
When she walks the Inca Trail, she will take a heart made of blue resin with her, in memory of Jordan. It matches the hearts set in his headstone.
‘‘Life stopped for him here, and I know he wouldn’t want my life to stop with his.’’
After the walk, Bowman plans to continue to raise awareness of suicide and the importance of talking about mental health.
‘‘There has to be a purpose to it. He can’t just have died for nothing.’’
Bowman and Matthews are continuing to raise funds for the foundation as part of the Inca Trail Challenge. Donations can be made through the foundation’s website, at events.mentalhealth. org.nz/fundraisers/kerri bowman/inca-trail-2019.