[Alffe]

In January of 2003, Julia and Kevin Sherbun lost their son Nicholas to suicide. They didn't know he was in such terrible pain and everyone was shocked when they heard.

"There were no notable signs or symptoms that he had depression, or any indication that he was suicidal," said Kevin. "It was one of those things. We couldn't believe it happened to us."

But it did, and now the Sherbuns share their story in the hopes of preventing any other family from going through what they did. The Sherbuns work with the Yellow Ribbon Program, an acclaimed national suicide prevention program for high school students through the Suicide Prevention Council.

For a year they couldn't even talk about Nicholas' death. Research shows that it is typically up to 3 years before survivors feel they are beginning to heal. "Our new philosophy is that if we can just save one student every time we go and speak it's worth the pain of going and speaking to them," said Julia.

"I know we have impacted and saved lives." said Kevin. A multitude of students have presented themselves or others to guidance personnel after all of our presentations, asking for help. And he says talking to the students is helping them.

"It's cathartic. We have to prepare for it, and we talk through that and that's been very healthy for us. We didn't choose this mission, this mission chose us."