Shaylin Takesue was smart and funny and beautiful, inside and out. In high school, she played volleyball, despite being 5-foot-1. She was a libero, the back row defensive player. At Illinois State University, where her little sister Olivia was also a student, Shaylin was busy and popular, interested in mental health. She had her own struggles, battling depression. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she sometimes spoke of suicide. But that seemed under control in the spring of 2023. Shaylin was out partying with her friends when, eight days before graduation, she abruptly killed herself at age 22, without planning or a note. Her sister found her body.
“It’s hard,” said her mother, Michelle Takesue, of Batavia. “You always think it’s going to happen to somebody else. Not you. We spend our whole life as a parent trying to keep our kids safe. You love them more than anything in the world. You fear that something could happen to them, but you don’t really get it until something does, something you pray never happens, the biggest heartache anyone could imagine.”
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans in their 20s. Impulsive suicides are common — one study found that a quarter of those making serious suicide attempts consider the act for less than five minutes beforehand. Suicide can be seen as a kind of infectious disease — that’s why journalists are asked not to describe the exact method of a specific suicide, so as not to inspire copycats.
But comfort is also contagious. As is awareness. Both will be spread at the Out of the Darkness Chicagoland Walk Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Montrose Harbor. Six thousand people whose lives are affected by suicide are expected to attend the walk, sponsored by the Illinois chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Sixty are representing Shaylin Takesue.
“We did the first one in Bloomington-Normal, right after she passed away,” said her father, Tim Takesue. “To me, it was completely eye-opening. A little bit of healing, understanding that we are definitely not alone. To see how much this has affected people.”
The walk is a blend of outdoor festival and somber commemoration, embodied by the “honor beads” participants wear — color-coded Mardi Gras strands: white for loss of a child, red for a spouse or partner, gold for a parent.
“It’s so simple, but it’s one of the most meaningful activities at the event,” said Angela Cummings, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the foundation. “They just look across the crowd and see all the people wearing beads. They lock eyes, and they know — they understand. Someone else is walking the path. It’s so comforting for people to see others wearing their color of beads.”
Purple means loss of a friend.
“That walk was very hard for all of us,” said Melissa Blaber, who began a podcast, “Stay and Slay,” focused on mental health and suicide prevention with another of Shaylin’s friends, Krissy Jerkatis. “The following year, we did our first Out of the Darkness walk in Chicago and raised $1,200 for suicide prevention. That was when we realized people do care about Shay’s story. They’re willing to help.”
In 2022, the Illinois Department of Health started a three-digit phone number for mental health emergencies — 988.
“When people come to our Out of the Darkness Walks, they really get that sense of community. They get the strong understanding that they are not alone, and that help is available” said Cummings. “It does so much to reduce the stigma and get the conversations going, to have a giant event like this where every type of person comes out. You look around and think, ‘Right. Mental health is just like physical health and it’s OK to talk about it.’ Just like any health condition, the more we talk about it, the more we treat it, the better the outcome.”
But this is also a subject where good feeling can be fleeting, while pain rolls on.
“We are so beyond grateful and blessed at the people that are still supporting us,” said Shaylin’s mother, Michelle. “She truly is so deeply missed. It’s like it just happened. That’s the hardest thing to comprehend. It’s been three years and feels like a month ago. I feel like I lost three years of my life. Three years I don’t remember. It was an impulsive move [for Shaylin]. I do feel that in my heart, [her daughter’s reaction would be] ‘What the hell did I do? I didn’t meant to do that mom.’ That’s what she’s thinking. She was having a great night with her friends. It so terrible. We still can’t comprehend it. What happened, this could not have happened.”
