Chelsea resident to walk overnight for suicide awareness

While the rest of her hometown is going to sleep on June 4, Chelsea resident Tracie Marcum will be in New York City, beginning a sunset-to-sunrise walk honoring her mother.

Marcum is an operations manager for a travel software company, a candidate for Chelsea City Council and a mother of two. But what’s taking her to New York City is the memory of her mother, who committed suicide when Marcum was 7 years old.

“When my mom died, nobody wanted to talk about it. Therefore, nobody wanted to talk about it, so nobody wanted to talk about her either,” Marcum said.

About five years ago, Marcum began participating in the annual, 3-mile Out of the Darkness Walk at Heardmont Park, part of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Her own father and siblings were reluctant to talk about their loss, but at the annual walk Marcum found people who understood what she was going through.

“After going there and being with people who had been through the same stuff that I had been through, it was just nice to be in an environment where you could speak about it; there’s no stigma around it,” she said. “I felt so good after that first walk, so I decided to become a field advocate.”

As a field advocate, Marcum has talked to Shelby County school resource officers about signs of depression and resources for teens. She also has expanded her annual walk group to include not only her husband, John, and children, but also friends and even her father and siblings.

In 2015, Marcum decided she wanted to take part in the national AFSP Out of the Darkness walk in Boston. She raised the $1,000 donation required to enter the roughly 18-mile walk from dusk to dawn. Though Marcum arrived alone, she said she spent most of the walk with four other women she met along the way.

“It was the most physically, emotionally, mentally challenging thing I’ve ever done,” she said.

As if the distance wasn’t difficult enough, it started raining at about mile three. By mile 15, the wind had blown away her poncho, and Marcum said she wasn’t sure she could make it all the way to the end. At the end of the walk she knew there was a luminary — a candle in a paper bag decorated with her mother’s picture — waiting for her. But it would be hard to find among the thousands of luminaries brought by fellow walkers.

“I was so tired, and I was hurting so bad. My hips, my legs, my whole body was hurting, and I was like, ‘There’s so many of these things, and it is raining. I’m never going to be able to find mine because I just want to go in here and sit down,’” she said. “So the minute I walk in the door where we were, I saw mine. I saw my mom’s picture, and I busted out crying.”

Seeing the luminary when she arrived at 2 a.m. helped Marcum remember why she had done the walk in the first place. Hearing that the event had raised $3 million for the AFSP also helped.

It was a little tough the next day, when she said she was in so much pain she had to be put in a wheelchair to get through the Boston airport. But the cause is so important to Marcum that she’s willing to take on the challenge again.

This year’s national Out of the Darkness Walk will be June 4-5 in New York City. Marcum is slowly building up her walking endurance to make it a little less painful this time. She is also fundraising to meet the minimum $1,000 donation again through her own page on the AFSP site and hosting a casino night for family and friends in her home.

To Marcum, the struggle of the walk is outweighed by the importance of funding more suicide research and bringing awareness so that people with depression choose to get help and don’t feel alone.

“Your brain is an organ, just like your heart. And your brain gets sick, too,” Marcum said. “Attention needs to be brought to it. We need to stop with the stigma associated with somebody being mentally ill and looking for help. I mean, that’s just garbage.”

To donate to Marcum’s fundraiser, go to afsp.org/take-action/give-a-gift, click “Donate to a Participant” and search for “Tracie Marcum.” Learn more about suicide prevention at afsp.org.