Choose to Stay

By DeLee Brown

Read to the 2019 TTBB ACDA Honor Choir March 2, 2019

If I could have had two more minutes with my son, these are the things I would say:

Whatever is going on, we’ll help you out of it and we won’t be ashamed. Please choose to stay.

It is possible to grow through the things you are going through. Please choose to stay.

The darkness, the cloud that covers your mind, there are medicines and doctors who can help. Please choose to stay.

The voice in your head that tells you no one will notice that you are gone…IT IS A LIE. Please choose to stay.

Everything changes. Whatever you are stuck in will eventually change. Don’t make a permanent decision to solve a temporary problem. Please choose to stay.

Your mistakes do not defne you. Please choose to stay.

Your song is not fnished and there is someone out there who needs to hear your song. Please choose to stay.

Please fght, fght one more day. Please choose to stay.

You are needed, you are wanted, you are loved. Oh, please choose to stay.

My son Aaron took his life on Thursday, October 4, 2018. No one, his friends, his teachers, and especially his parents, had any idea he was considering suicide. His passing has rocked our community, his friends, and our family. He took my mother’s heart when he left. If there is an opportunity to say something that would help others not make the same choice as Aaron, let us be brave and say it. ~ DeLee