Suicide sends out ripples of grief to all

Editor’s note: This article contains triggering content related to Suicide Prevention Month. Proceed reading with caution. 

Sophomore Ashley Yarborough had forgotten what her dad’s voice sounded like until she recently stumbled upon a voicemail. It was the first time she had heard it since he died by suicide when she was only 8 years old. 

“I didn’t know he sounded like straight cornbread,” she jokingly said. 

It was just a day in Florence, South Carolina, when she was at Nana’s house next door trying to finish a “Full House” episode before heading home. 

She remembers being carried in her sister’s arms next to her barefooted mother, running to the neighbor’s house so the children wouldn’t see the corpse. 

“I remember looking out the window and seeing all the ambulances and all the police cars and a hearse,” Yarborough said. 

Initially, her mother thought Ricky’s blood pressure dropped due to his diabetes diagnosed earlier in his life. That was until her mother, his high school sweetheart, saw the gun. 

“She saw the doors open and his feet sticking out of the shop door,” Yarborough said. 

That night she was told that her “daddy didn’t make it.” There wasn’t a note. 

Despite the hallucinations and chaos of that day, she knew she wasn’t dreaming when she saw her Nana walk through the front door covered in her son’s blood from when she was holding Ricky’s head. 

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, “but I just remember, I know this part was real.” 

Learning who her father was, has helped Ashley grieve. From the core memories she shared with him, she never knew him to be sad. 

It wasn’t until her junior year of high school that she began to grieve her father. When she was younger, her family members would lie and say he was on a “long vacation” to protect the sanity of 8-year-old Ashley. 

Ricky’s love for drawing, wildlife and cars is reflected in Ashley, who shares his last name and preserves his memory. To her, he was the “American, redneck Steve Irwin.” 

“I got my mama’s face, but I got my daddy’s personality,” she said. 

After her father died by suicide, she realized how much he would be missing– including her high school graduation and other milestones.  

Today, Yarborough is left with insecurity and abandonment issues. 

“When something like that happens, for a long time, you don’t understand,” she said. 

Everyone, including CCU students, can prevent suicide by checking up on their friends and family– especially the ones who seem the happiest, Yarborough said. 

She believes in a God of silver linings. Every day she wakes up and is grateful for what she has rather than her loss, even though Ricky was her “superhero.” 

“I don’t even think about committing suicide,” she said. “Just because I know it wouldn’t just kill me– it’d kill other people. And I don’t want to do that to the people I love.”