On an April day ten years ago, Laura Trujillo's mother took herself to a ledge in the Grand Canyon — and jumped off to her death. She left a note in her Jeep saying, "I know this is not right but it's all I can do. Please pray for my soul." Four years later, Trujillo returned to the place, looking if not for answers, some understanding.
As Trujillo, a managing editor for USA Today, writes in her new memoir "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal," "Despite all the research, there still isn't a proven formula that can predict precisely who is going to kill themselves and who won't, which interventions work, or work for a while, and which don't, which words might save someone one day only to have them slip away the next." Yet the quest to unpack the narrative matters. It matters to loved ones left in the aftermath of suicide, it matters to the millions of people vulnerable to depression and anxiety.
