Original subtitles

HART [CHUCKLES]: No, I can't shoot this.

This is private. This is private.

This is not important to show. Okay.

Clear the way.

Here we go.

[♪♪]

Good morning, world.

Good morning, Evan.

Mikey. Get a shot of Mike.

Good morning, Mike.

Good morning, D.

DANA: Good morning.

EVAN: Good morning, Michael.

HART: So, Evan, where do you want me to stand for the shot?

EVAN: Uh...

Where do you want me to stand?

Right here? EVAN: A little back.

Take another step back? Yeah.

Big step back. Oh, no.

Oh, I'm so mad now.

Oh.

EVAN: We'll see you later.

[HUMMING]

Whoo...

Look at the sky.

EVAN: Okay, I'll interview you, Mom.

Okay, hi.

How do you like the trip?

I love this trip,

but I don't love it more than you.

Are you sure? Yeah.

Paradise. I like paradise.

There's Daddy.

EVAN: Dad, Yeah.

what do you think about the trip?

Well, you know,

I'm really glad you asked me that question, Evan.

Since I like this trip so much,

you know what it makes me do?

What?

It makes me want to jump right over you.

Whoa...

DANA: Very impressive. EVAN: Yes.

So now we're going to get the house.

There's Michael's room.

And we're getting closer to Michael,

the sleeping baby.

How do you like the trip, Michael?

So now you have to meet

the cameraman.

Am I good or am I bad?

We'll have that in...

5.5 seconds.

[♪♪]

[SAW BUZZING]

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

I was at my, uh--

In my room in my boarding school when my, uh--

My dad called me

and told that Evan had jumped out of the--

Out of his window.

[♪♪]

[STARTS ENGINE]

It was sort of the third week of school,

I think, that he--

He chose to take his life.

I went into my mother's room

and...

I realized the sentence that had to come out of my mouth.

I had to communicate to them

why I was coming in there

and why I was reaching out for them and...

[SNIFFLES]

You know, I had to say,

"Evan's killed himself."

One of the things that you do, I think--

Or at least that I do unconsciously,

to avoid things that are really too painful to...

confront.

--is just black them out.

How-- How can you understand doing that?

It doesn't seem possible.

What on Earth has happened to make your son so miserable

that he doesn't want to be there anymore.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

DANA: We'll never know what was in Evan's head

the night he killed himself.

The mystery will always be

what his thought was when he was on the ledge.

You know, as he put one foot over the--

The window,

and made that decision.

Maybe he started to realize that

his mental illness was so powerful

and that he couldn't win.

MAN: "He that raised up Jesus from the dead

"will also give life to our mortal bodies,

"in the sure and certain hope

"of the resurrection to eternal life

"through our Lord Jesus Christ,

"we commend to almighty God our brother Evan,

"and we commit his body to the ground.

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,

dust to dust."

Amen.

GROUP: Amen.

DANA: How's it possible

that I found myself at his funeral

holding my baby for the last time?

[♪♪] [PROJECTOR CLICKING]

The day Evan was born

was the happiest day of my life.

It's indescribable.

It-it was indescribable happiness

to finally see him, because when you're pregnant

you start to have a relationship with the baby

and it's, like, moving around and...

You know, who are you? Knock-knock.

Who's there?

And then he comes out and, uh,

Evan was particularly pretty.

I just fell in love with him right away.

[♪♪]

HART: Well, I actually filmed Evan getting born

and I was very excited.

As I recall, I gave the camera to the doctor

and he did a shot also.

DANA: I was 26 when Evan was born.

Hart was 42, he already had a son

from a previous relationship.

But Evan was my first.

Hart and I are filmmakers

and at that time Hart was shooting away a lot

and he was gone a lot of the time.

So Evan and I ended up being alone together.

He was young, I was young.

We were like these two little creatures,

trying to help each other out a little bit.

[LAUGHING]

Yes.

Yes.

What's this?

HART: Okay, we--

We're gonna have an interview with the mom.

So, Mom...

what do you think about your kid?

Kid?

Oh, yeah, this thing.

Well, think that-- I think that it's really

just the most special thing,

to give him big kisses.

[BLOWS RASPBERRY]

Really, I think that's the best part

of it all.

NICHOLAS: I remember the first time I met Evan.

Dana had come home from the hospital.

I think I had actually been away with my mother

while he was born and my dad came

and picked me up at my apartment.

I was living on Mercer Street with my mom.

And he said,

"We're going to meet your little brother."

There's this photograph of me, um,

taken during my first encounter with Evan

and my expression sort of sums it all up.

It's, "what the fuck is this?"

[CHUCKLES] Sort of holding this baby in my arms thinking,

you know, "where did he come from?"

So-- So what--? Who's your brother?

Nicky.

Do you like your brother Nicky?

[MUMBLES]

So how old are you, Evan?

Um... I old--

I older.

You're older? How old?

Um, really old.

Look at Daddy. Look at Daddy's camera when you say that.

I'm really old.

You're really old? How old?

Like, big old.

Are you big? Yeah.

How big are you?

T--

Real big?

Big as a dinosaur?

I remember his first

word that he used over and over and over again,

was, "no."

And we used to joke it was "no"

because he heard the word "no" so much

because as soon as he was walking around

he would get into everything.

[GROUP LAUGHS]

GROUP: Aw...

WOMAN: Oh, how cute.

[LAUGHTER]

DANA: Evan, no, no. No.

Be gentle. [WHINES]

Oh, come on. "Please let me punch him in the nose."

[LAUGHTER]

NICHOLAS: I think I understood from an early time

that he was a challenging kid.

[CRYING]

MAN: Russell, Russell.

[♪♪]

Getting dressed in the morning I knew was a challenge

if he didn't have the right outfit,

you know, you weren't gonna be leaving the house

for a very long time.

[♪♪]

One summer we were in Nantucket

and we were trying to leave the beach at the end of the day

and I think it took us 45 minutes

to get the towels in the baskets

and start walking home from the beach

because Evan wanted the towels to be folded

a certain way,

and put in the basket a certain way

and if they weren't

he would dump them out in the sand

and he'd say, "Start over, start over."

That was his big phrase.

HART: He was a perfectionist.

And this persisted throughout his whole life.

If he wasn't absolutely the best at something,

then he would get frustrated.

And discipline was pretty much impossible.

I mean, the way we used to handle it

is we'd say, okay, so you have time-out

and put him in his room.

Well, you put him in his room for time-out

it's like, you know, Keith Moon in a hotel room.

You know, the TV set's out the window,

bookshelves are, you know--

Crashing over.

And you come in and it's, like, totally destroyed

and do you think he's at all--?

Uh, you know, feels bad about it?

No, it's like, "Okay, so put me in prison.

I wanna go to prison."

NICHOLAS: There is no doubt in my mind

that he had psychological issues.

I guess the best way I can describe it is

he lacked emotional shock absorbers.

And because of that

would react to situations

that you and I would see as insignificant

in a really, really big way.

[♪♪]

DANA: Well, really, it was almost like

there were two Evans.

He would be, on the one hand, tantrumming

and being completely impossible to reach.

On the other hand, being this wonderful,

vibrant, vivacious kid.

[♪♪]

EVAN: Hello.

CHRIS: Hello. What's your name?

My name is RoboCop, what's yours?

Nobody.

Well, I'm pullin' you over,

Nobody, 'cause you're speeding.

Ease up on the throttle.

Okay, good night.

Have sweet dreams, goodbye.

[BOTH LAUGH]

DANA: I mean, he was so much fun to be around

and when Michael was born

Evan was thrilled.

He finally had a playmate.

They were roommates

and he adored Michael.

Hi, it's me Evan.

That's my little brother and that's my mom.

HART: And what are they doing?

My mom's talk--

Trying to talk to somebody,

Michael's just sucking on his pacifier.

I couldn't take 'em out

'cause that was too hard to open.

DANA: Okay, what's--? What's Michael saying?

EVAN: He's saying that--

"I wanna get that dog." [WHINES]

That's what he's saying.

Okay, Evan, you wanna film now?

Yeah. Okay.

[EVAN GRUNTS]

EVAN: And that's...

formula.

There's a green shirt,

guess who, it's Daddy.

Four eyes.

Oh, there's inside the toilet.

And there's under the bed, let's go see.

We see red gloves,

we see some socks.

Ready? HART: I'm ready.

Okay, action.

HART: He learned how to read very quickly,

he loved books.

He loved talking about what he was reading.

And he was a great companion, you know,

when you were doin' something.

Going on a trip...

He was a guy who was,

you know, good for an adventure.

MAN: All right, Hart.

DANA: Hart. EVAN: And Evan.

I know, it's tough. And Evan.

And Evan.

DANA: He's a big one.

Beautiful.

Let's see the triumphant fishermen.

[CHEERING] Yes, Nicholas.

Yay!

What do you think, Evan?

What do you think?

Goody!

My camera.

HART: Aw, poor baby boy.

He needs to go to Mommy for help.

DANA: Evan was incredibly affectionate,

he was very physical.

Very cuddly. Always cuddling up.

Ev, are you a little baby still in Mommy's tummy?

Uh-huh. You haven't even been born yet, have you?

You have to take that intense sweetness

and l-- You know, sensitivity,

and just completely upended

into the darkest, scariest...

Uh...

Scary, scary. That's all I can say.

Scary person, scary soul.

The darkest of souls.

[♪♪] [APPLAUSE]

When Evan was in kindergarten

I got a call from the after-school teacher.

She was really concerned

about him talking about suicide.

KAREN: I met Evan when he was 5,

and he came to our program-- Performing arts school.

And, um,

he was probably the cutest kid I've ever seen.

[APPLAUSE]

You try not to have favorites

but sometimes it just happens

and he happened to be all the teachers' favorite.

He was just one of the most loving, creative kids,

I've ever met.

Very righteous

and everything had to be fair.

And if someone was giving anyone a hard time

he would be the first one to break it up

and say, "Do you think that was fair?

It wasn't fair."

[♪♪]

But when he was 5 and he was in the younger group

he was obsessed with dying.

You know, jumping out the window

and saying, "I'll kill myself."

And he said a relative had done that.

Every day in group, he would bring that up.

And he would say, "I wanna jump out the window."

He'd say, "I don't care if I die. I don't care."

And I said, "Well, what about me?"

And he said, "Well, I'd feel bad for you

"and my parents, but I wouldn't mind

'cause I won't feel anything."

And he would sit in my lap

and have his arm, you know, around me

and he would talk about it, he said,

"No, I would-- I would jump out."

You know, like-- I'm like, wh--?

You know, without being upset, without--

You know, just being loving and affectionate and...

And I said, "Evan, that's just weird talk."

All right? You know, come on.

That's-- That's just weird.

I've seen depressed kids

and I've seen, you know, hyper kids.

But not kids who talk about...

you know, dying.

He was just curious about death.

And even obsessed with it.

DANA: The thing about Evan's obsession with death

was that it was so matter-of-fact.

A lot of times it was just casual.

EVAN: Um, we're in Hawaii.

We were just snorkeling, I saw--

Uh, we saw an eel,

and now we're gonna go look at some whales.

Maybe we can see Moby Dick's son.

Like, I remember

one time in-in Hawaii...

We're just there snorkeling or something

and he says something like, "By the way, I've got a rifle."

Don't say this at home,

kids.

HART: So what?

I got a rifle.

You got a rifle? Yeah.

What do you need a rifle for?

To shoot you.

And you just go, "what?"

Like, what do you mean to sh--?

I mean, that's not really funny.

It's not really expressed in a--

In a way that seems attention-getting.

It seems like,

"Yeah. This is what I think about."

"1997, Evan Perry.

"Perfectionistic, obsessive.

Doesn't like to have things..."

I stopped writing there.

"Good athlete, popular...

DANA: When he was 5 we did start seeing a psychiatrist.

"Doing well in school.

Last year fighting, etc."

And very early on,

he diagnosed depression

in Evan and put him on Prozac.

We talked about Prozac,

September 25th, '97.

That was the heyday of where

people were just really discovering

depression in children.

You know, before-- I don't know when.

When I started out training,

people didn't really think children had depression.

It was just thought,

children don't get depressed. Period.

I remember when you prescribed Prozac

I was pretty surprised

because I'd never heard of that.

That was, like, a really big thing.

"Positive, strong family history

of depression on both sides."

Should I say this part? Or skip this?

"Parental uncle

committed suicide, age 21."

Your brother, yeah.

"Talks about death and murder."

He was just scary. I don't know what to say.

He had already made a suicide attempt.

DANA: Which one? "Ran to window

and threatened to jump in front of parents," I wrote.

"Defiant, rebellious, banged head.

"Threatened to kill parents and brother.

I want cancer."

Well, he was such a baby, you know, in the beginning.

He had such a baby face.

I mean, such a kind of--

Kind of, pink, kind of, baby kid.

And then it was this-that--

Kind of, visual contrast between the--

You know, the demons inside him and that, kind of, sweet look.

[♪♪]

DANA: At one point,

I'd say, Evan was about--

Maybe 7 or 8.

He and I were home and once again

he started to talk about wanting to kill himself.

A lot of times he would tell me specifically

what he was gonna do.

He was gonna jump out the window,

he was gonna jump off a building,

he was gonna cut himself.

Or in this particular occasion,

he was gonna hang himself.

He took this pillow thing

with a strap on it

and climbed up on his bunk bed,

then he affixed it up there.

And then he put it around his neck

and he showed me how he was gonna jump off the bunk bed.

He's gonna show Mom how he's gonna hang himself,

right in front of her.

And I didn't let him.

But I'm tired of trying to explain to people

what I'm hearing at home

and I'm just gonna record this.

I always felt so guilty about taking those pictures,

but I was so tired of explaining to people

my son wants to kill himself.

I just needed some kind of proof that, um--

That this is really happening.

Because it was so impossible to believe.

Oh, God.

This is when he tried to hang himself?

DANA: Yeah.

You know, there was a, uh...

idea that children could not be suicidal

because they didn't understand that death was, um,

irreversible.

Um...

I never really felt like I knew Evan very well.

Um, he was the scariest kid I ever saw in my life.

I'd never seen who'd been this--

Was this intent on, uh, death.

[♪♪]

It felt to me always like there was

a mask or something there.

And I remember that look going over him.

That unreachable look.

DANA: When Evan went through a mood swing

his whole body changed.

His face changed, his physical attitude changed.

His ability to communicate changed.

And you literally saw it in his face.

He became unreachable.

Hart and I started to call it the fugue state.

You'd sort of go like this:

The physical change would be

like a slackening of his face.

It just wasn't engaged.

Something receded.

And what you had was this kind of thing:

This facade.

MAN: Some whales are real curious, they come right up to the boat.

Some whales turn the other cheek and leave, essentially.

DANA: There was a tone of voice that went along with it too.

A very flat tone of voice.

[GROUP GASPING]

WOMAN: They look like orcas to me.

HART: Where'd you see the whale?

I saw it over there and over there.

Pretty exciting seeing

the size of the whale, wasn't it?

DANA: Yeah, it was cool.

He could be very sullen.

HART:

I-- What do you mean?

Yeah, I am.

Five. HART: Five?

This is the sixth.

So this is pretty exciting...

He definitely acted like a teenager

at a very young age.

You hungry?

Yeah.

Yeah, I want a peanut butter sandwich.

There's my goddamn control.

HART: What'd you say?

God. No, that's not nice.

HART: He seemed to have skipped being a kid

and gone immediately to being a adolescent.

HART: How was the football game yesterday?

EVAN:

DANA: That you expect from your 15-year-old.

You know, "You're not the boss of me.

Come on, give me the car keys."

"Where you goin'?" "Out."

"What'd you do in school?" "Nothin'."

I mean, that seems normal.

In a 7-year-old it doesn't seem normal.

And he was very teenage it was--

Along with that though, he was also very sophisticated.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

EVAN [SINGING]:

DANA: He did not have a Britney Spears phase

he did not have a Backstreet Boys phase,

he went straight to Dylan, Neil Young, Nirvana.

And he wrote a lot of songs.

His lyrics touched on things that you can't imagine

a kid that young would even think about.

♪ You would think it's ♪

♪ Odd for me ♪

♪ If I could be ♪

♪ Cuttin' myself On the neck ♪

♪ Fittin' you With my knife ♪

♪ Sayin' you're gonna Die tonight ♪

DANA: Stop!

♪ Well, that's because ♪

♪ I'm depressed Nothing less ♪

♪ Curious, furious ♪

♪ So somebody kill me please ♪

♪ I'm standin' on my knees ♪

[MIKEY SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]

♪ Somebody kill me please ♪

♪ Pretty, pretty please ♪

♪ I'm standin' on my knees ♪

It's because I'm depressed.

[♪♪]

Okay, that's it.

NICHOLAS: When he was maybe 8 or 9 he kept a journal

and I saw it and took it out

and started reading it.

And there are these poems in it

essentially saying,

"I'm prepared for death.

I'm not afraid of death."

These really deep poems.

And I was

probably 15-16

and going through my moody phase.

And I remember thinking, "Wow.

These are thoughts I'm having right now."

I felt there was something really powerful

going on in his mind,

that he had a sensitivity,

a maturity that was way beyond his years.

KAREN: There's one play that Evan wrote

and his character was

a depressed kid who just saw the negativity in everything.

Hey, kid. Yeah?

It's not raining anymore.

Just give it some t--

Just give it some time, it'll start up again.

When he was 10 he said,

"Let's do a play about someone dying--

A boy dying."

I said, "Well,

what kind of story is that?"

He said, "What? It's a story about a kid dying."

And all his friends and they miss him.

[SOBBING] How am I supposed to live without you?

You were my big brother.

Who's gonna take care of me?

Walk me to school?

Calm me down when I'm upset?

Please, don't leave me.

We'll be there for you.

It will be okay.

I'll walk you to school.

I can't leave him!

Evan came up with a story

that didn't make any sense.

Just, someone died.

And, you know, that they cry.

You said you would always be there for me.

Well, I need you

more than I ever have right now.

I think he wanted the play

to be about the boy dying,

which obviously was his character,

and to be able to see it in a play

that everybody loves him.

I know that. When you leave, it's like,

that's when everyone gets together

and they miss you and they honor you.

He will always be with us.

You don't have to look here, or in heaven.

Look in your heart and he'll be there.

[ERIC CLAPTON'S "TEARS IN HEAVEN" PLAYING]

So we decided to do the show

and that's when, um...

you know, Evan attempted--

Or came close

to attempting suicide at PS-11.

[♪♪]

DANA: The fall semester of 2000,

when Evan was in fifth grade

he communicated

to the principal of his school

that he felt suicidal.

We get a letter and of course--

You know, it says, "just a psychological evaluation."

Well, I'm already in therapy.

I'm already seeing a psychiatrist.

He was already on meds. I don't know--

You know, I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

And three weeks later,

he made an attempt at school.

I got a call at my office.

"This is Mr. Delmonico

from PS-11 and this is about Evan."

He said, "It's-it's very serious.

Um, you need to get here."

And I'm like, "You have to tell me what's going on."

He said, "He's up on the roof of his school."

PS-11, it's probably

six stories.

And he took a chunk of pavement

about the size of a hamburger

and threw it down onto the playground

where the other kids were.

One of the teachers went out on the roof

and there was Evan, perched on a ledge.

And Evan told him that he wanted to kill himself,

that he was gonna jump.

The teacher told him that life was worth living

and what was good about Evan,

and that he was loved.

And eventually Evan came down on his own.

By the time I got there,

he had been brought down into the principal's office

and we were there in the principal's office

and we decided to go straight

from there to an emergency room.

[SIREN WAILS]

One of the residents asked him,

"Do you know what it's like to be dead?"

He says, "Yeah, everybody gathers around

and talks about how great you were."

HART: And for me it was like,

this is my worst fear.

He is like my brother.

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

My younger brother Scott committed suicide

by asphyxiating himself in a car.

Because of my experience with my brother

I wasn't going to fool around.

We had Evan involuntarily committed

to a mental institution.

Uh, 'cause we were...

very, very concerned about his suicide attempt.

We took it very seriously.

The place he went was called Four Winds.

It's outside of New York,

and it's a lock-up psychiatric facility.

SUZANNE: Evan was brought in

by ambulance after having an incident at school.

Um, he was brought to the Deerfield Unit

which is the unit I was working on at the time.

Which is for kids 8 to 12.

And immediately assessed and evaluated.

We were able to establish

a, uh-- A pattern.

And saw that he definitely,

uh, met the criteria for bipolar disorder.

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

You know, known historically as manic-depression.

This is a chemical imbalance,

a chemical illness in the brain.

Some kids have more of a propensity towards depression

and some kids have more of a propensity towards mania.

I think in Evan's case,

it was definitely more depression.

Bipolar depression is definitely more severe

than just depression.

That's why suicide attempts are more common

in kids with bipolar depression.

And that's why it's scarier.

'Cause you don't know how far he'll take it.

You know, you don't know if he actually would

have jumped off that ledge at school.

You know, he had a tendency to blame

other people or other situations

instead of being able to say, "Okay, yeah, I get it.

"I did something I probably shouldn't have done,

it scared a lot of people and that's why I'm here."

He just sort of said,

"All I wanted was someone to listen."

And he just couldn't understand

that his behaviors and the measure that he took

were scary to people.

He didn't think that if he went and stood on the, uh--

The roof of the school, that anything would happen.

So when he ended up in a hospital

where it's lock down and they watch you every second

and you're not allowed to do anything

unless it's part of the schedule

and there are these other damaged kids

and your parents can only visit once in a while.

He just broke down. [♪♪]

I mean, he just fell apart. He fell apart.

SUZANNE: He was destroying property on the unit.

He was very, very angry.

At one point I remember he drew all over his walls

in his room and we had to have him clean his walls.

He also was tantrumming a lot, he was angry a lot.

He was banging his head and his arms up against a wall.

When he was in the throes of a manic episode

or a depressive episode,

you know, you couldn't reason.

And you can't reason with a kid who's bipolar.

HART: Visiting Evan at Four Winds

was agonizing.

Here is a kid

who was in a lock-up psychiatric facility

for seriously mentally ill kids.

And coming to terms with your kid

who seemed to have behavioral issues

but he could've just, you know--

Be like an adolescent,

that this is something he'd go through.

Because he had so many really,

you know, charming, bright qualities.

Four Winds was, uh,

a real body punch.

Evan was given a variety of medications.

Depakote was one of them.

Uh, he seemed really doped up.

And then they suggested

that he try lithium.

SUZANNE: Lithium is a mood stabilizer

and it is used to level off

the serotonin in the brain

as opposed to having the highs and lows

you kind of even off the chemistry.

DANA: He really did start to respond to lithium.

I mean, it was really, pretty remarkable.

But he was still, you know, profoundly ill.

So then the question became like:

Well, what do we do after this?

[BIRDS CAWING]

HART: PS-11 would not take him back

and there was no place for him to go.

Uh, except for this very expensive alternative

which turned out to, I think, have saved his life

for a number of years.

DANA: Suzanne Hanna who was his therapist

recommended this place called Wellspring

which was what they call Milieu Therapy.

Everything's an opportunity

to learn how to live in the group.

From doing the dishes, making meals,

to taking care of animals,

to taking care of younger children,

to chores and things like that.

DAN: Evan came to us

from Four Winds hospital

and they were pretty adamant that the bipolar disorder was,

um, managed, medication-wise

and that he was on the proper dosages

and, uh, that seemed to be the case

on some level we saw.

And then, right away, within a few days,

Evan decided to venture

off campus and, uh...

Obvious question at that point was:

Was it really controlled?

Three days in he decided that he wasn't gonna have it.

You know, that this whole thing

about the adults being in charge

really wasn't for him.

He made it a little bit more complicated than he had to.

Built in a little dramatic effect,

he went out a window. He could've went out the door.

We don't have-- The doors aren't locked.

Oh, I see, so he went out the window

and then went on the roof,

and then jumped down.

So this was like-- That involved some doing.

HART: Dana gets a phone call from Evan,

that he's climbed out a window

and escaped from Wellspring

and is in some guy's house.

Of course, we had to go to juvenile court

because the guy whose house he broke into,

uh, pressed charges.

I think the neighbor whose house he was in

was quite unforgiving.

You know, luckily, he didn't do anything

with that man's house that day,

but he was trying to get

a rise out of his parents to come rescue him.

Show them just how much he's suffering

and he'll go home and stir it all up again

and be back in the hospital again in--

You know, another year.

It was as if he was in a game.

It was an important event,

and it really kind of marked that need for a switch.

That-that Evan really needed to be held accountable

for the relational damage he was doing.

So that event was a microcosm

of what had happened in his life.

He wasn't being held accountable on some level

for the damage he did to you all.

That was the first night we were here.

We sat right here, right?

Yup.

As I recall, um, you had us in first

and kind of gave us a little heads up

and then Evan came in

and he had us, I think, sit on his--

Sit in our laps and-- Right.

And you told him we had to talk to him really honestly.

Right.

And I did and it was--

It was like this incredible relief

because I had permission to say what I was feeling

without being afraid of breaking him.

You know? I remember.

And you-you were like, "Really?"

[CHUCKLES] Yeah, I was like, really?

Well, if I tell him that I'm afraid

I'm gonna find him dead, he'll explode.

And the world will end and, you know,

all this stuff will come rushing out,

and we'll be poisonous,

and we won't be able to survive it.

And I think, to all of our amazement,

we not only survived,

but started building, you know, on that.

[♪♪]

DANA: Finally he started to work

with the therapy at Wellspring.

And slowly, bit by bit,

he started to come around to their philosophy.

We came frequently for, you know, sessions,

where we learned how to communicate as a family.

With Evan-- With his unique needs.

It was like learning a new language.

DANA: They basically say that children are responsible

for their actions.

Let's put it really simply:

If you make a mess, you clean it up.

Whether it's a physical mess

like you spilled something, you need to clean up,

or an emotional mess.

I remember coming here

and seeing, uh, Evan working on that stone wall over there.

DAN: For a child to think they cleaned up their mess

and they made something a little better,

rather than feeling like you were punished

or you had consequences or whatever.

But in this case you get to feel

like you really repaired something.

Yeah, and maybe that's even better than it was before.

DANA: I think what happened at Wellspring

is that they encouraged Evan to be a boy.

I think a lot of their philosophy is

to let children be children.

DAN: When he came he was kind of running the show.

You know, he was in adult conversations,

and he would much prefer being with the staff

than he would with the other kids.

He really needed to be a kid again

and just have fun and relax and--

And forget about all those bigger issues.

DANA: Especially for Evan who was really acting like

such a teenager at such a young age,

it was a miracle to see him get past

that facade of "I'm too cool."

And to just be a pure boy.

And I remember a time seeing him at Wellspring

playing in the yard with pure boyness,

that boy essence, which is what you need at that age.

It's a beautiful day, you're throwing a ball

with your friends.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

DANA: Early on, I'd say in the first four weeks or so,

he began to earn weekend passes,

so the weekend of Michael's birthday,

he finally did get released,

and he was at the birthday party

and I remember looking at him and thinking,

"Oh, he looks like a boy."

I mean, the old Evan would've been too cool,

he would've been turning up his nose,

and he would've been sneering,

he wouldn't have in a million years

let the clown paint his face. Okay, never.

He allowed himself to be a kid.

I-- I saw those layers peel away.

And a lot of it had to do with

how strict the counselors were. They weren't having it.

Evan could try to talk his way out of anything.

And Dan's just saying "I'm not going anywhere."

DAN: Remember, you know, bipolar disorder is not just

a disorder of mood, it's a disorder of judgment.

And for kids that's so debilitating.

If the adults don't hold them close

and make them responsible.

What he needed to know is that you guys were in charge,

and then he could build from your judgment,

and that's what he allowed us to do first,

'cause he looked around, he said, "Okay,

I'm not getting over on these guys, I'll let that happen."

And then we obviously bridge that to you.

It was one of the shortest stays we've really ever had,

uh, of a boy with so much going on in his life.

Three months is really an unusual time

to get all that done.

DANA: By the time Evan finished at Wellspring,

the lithium had definitely kicked in.

Along with the therapy, it was working,

and you couldn't have one without the other.

He seemed well enough to rejoin our family.

HART: The whole family went to Wellspring, and we all learned,

and when it was over, here we had this kid again,

and what do we do with him?

HART: So we decided to see whether we could get him

into a mainstream school which was sensitive

to kids who had issues.

So we got him into a school called York Prep.

And suddenly everything was different.

[BELL RINGING]

We would get a report card and he was, like,

one of the best students in the class.

The teachers were saying

"I wish all my students were like Evan."

He got the prize in the science project.

HART: So what's this? My science fair.

DANA: Now you've got the ribbon.

The ribbon.

BOY: It was so hard, taking them so fast.

There are, like, 40 pictures with digital camera,

and none of 'em worked.

DANA: One of the great things about Evan going to York

is he found such a great group of friends.

It took awhile for him to, like,

kind of gain your trust and stuff like that,

and, um, after awhile, it was--

He was just one of those people I could talk to about anything,

and come to him with any problem.

Once we started hanging out, I started to, like, you know,

figure out his interest in toys.

And I really liked toys, like, toys was my thing,

and toys was his thing, and cartoons were his thing.

And cartoons were my thing.

Well, he was definitely different

from all the other kids we hung out with.

Nobody seemed to have strong opinions like him.

He was really set in his ways.

And once he had an idea he wasn't gonna let it go.

Lot of stuff people say in high school they don't really mean

or they're just trying to be popular, but, like, you know,

Evan, he would just go right into it, he wouldn't hold back.

What I liked about Evan was that he, uh, was really creative,

and was interested in a lot of things that, like, not like--

Not just TV. Like, a lot of kids were just watching TV,

and he was making TV.

[ALL LAUGHING]

HART: Evan had various, you know, movie ideas.

When he was younger he roped me into shooting them.

HART: Come on, let's start. All right, ready.

It's rolling now. You guys, shut up!

HART: Okay, ready?

Three, two, one, action.

Hi, I'm Adam Luke, and I'm here to host a new reality TV show

titled, "What it Takes to be an Astronaut."

HART: There was a certain amount of chaos

that was involved in the creation of them.

All right, a redneck, and then, Gabe, you have to say something.

You have Chinese ADD, don't forget.

[IMITATING CHINESE ACCENT] I go to space all the time.

Spaces. Spaces. No gravity.

Okay, I'm not Chinese, 'cause it's too hard to be Chinese.

You're Chi-- You have ADD, what's the ADD about?

ADD, ADD, no Chinese.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Do you know how long it took us

just to get through these three lines? It took--

HART: Just try to play it a little more serious, okay?

You. Who are you supposed to be?

HART: It doesn't really-- At this point, it doesn't matter.

I wanna do-- I wanna do the whole thing over again.

HART: What do you mean, "the whole thing"?

'Cause I was--

[ALL SINGING INDISTINCTLY]

♪ I say, "Yo, man You want to fly through space" ♪

WILL: All the films we were making were all disasters.

We always got too excited about 'em,

'cause, like, we'd have microphones,

we have a nice camera, and we'd, like,

talk about it and talk about it and talk about it.

And then we'd just-- Wouldn't finish it.

[♪♪]

AIDAN: There was a summer Evan went to New York Film Academy,

and asked me to be in one of his movies.

The assignment was to shoot, uh,

in black and white and no sound.

He made a movie about me waking up

in a world with no sound and no color.

[MOUTHING] No!

I never knew that there was anything wrong with him.

He took medication. I had no idea.

Never brought it up.

Never talked about it.

Sometimes we got a little suspicious 'cause, like,

he would just be really quiet for a long period of time,

but we just accustomed to it because he did it a lot.

He would miss school every now and then.

I can tell-- I knew-- I would, like,

I would tell him he's on his period,

because he's, like, he looks like he-- You know,

he would have a month where he's just, like, moping around.

And then he'd have a month where's he's, like,

really happy, really happy.

And he would tell me, "Listen, the more happy I get,

the more pissed off I'm gonna get later."

AIDAN: One time, I think, going out to the roof,

I remember him sitting on the ledge, like...

And it really, like, scared me.

And he just seemed to be completely fearless,

like, almost willing to just walk-- Like, walk on the edge.

And I really, like, kind of yelled at him, like,

"Get down from the edge," you know.

That's, like, not something you do.

And it just-- He kind of distanced himself like that.

It was almost like showing--

Showing me, like, "I don't really care."

We talked about it a little,

but he always sort of brushed it away,

and he sort of said, "But I'm over that now." And...

We all thought he was pretty good,

and he always acted really great.

And there were no real signs of any, like,

real depression or anything.

I was totally optimistic about his health

and the direction that he was gonna go.

NICHOLAS: When I'd come home from school and spend holidays,

I remember remarking to myself, you know,

"This is a much more warm, loving household

then it was two years earlier.

I guess that's what I saw after Wellspring,

that Dana and my father

really showing him that

within our family lies a really strong foundation

that he can trust.

And during that time it really did seem like

everything was under control.

[♪♪]

HART: As the years went by, after Wellspring,

and he continued to be the top student in his class,

he continued to have good friends,

that there weren't any big issues.

I thought that maybe he was cured.

You know, maybe he's gonna have a life.

You know, I'd go with Evan to visit

his older brother in college,

and Evan was, like, looking at college,

and thinking, "Well, I can do it.

I can have a life like this."

You know, as the years proceeded,

I was not thinking that maybe the telephone was going to ring,

I was thinking that, "Hey, this-- This kid is different

from my brother. He's got a shot."

[♪♪]

My brother-- There'd never really been a diagnosis.

He was a successful suicide.

And that was my big fear about Evan.

From an early age, both Scott and Evan,

they were overwhelmed by their emotions.

With my brother, you know,

I had learned how to, you know, be his guide.

You know, we went to the same school,

we went to the same college.

We were very close.

And I'd been my brother's keeper

up until the point really where he started living with Martine,

his girlfriend.

WOMAN: Well, Scott was fun.

He was brilliant.

He was very creative, he was a great skier,

he was an athlete. We went skiing together.

We really had a lot of fun

and I was totally seduced when I met him.

I knew he was taking medication all along

and I knew he was seeing a psychiatrist.

He was getting some help.

I never really-- I had absolutely no experience

with depression before I met Scott.

So I knew that there was a problem,

but I didn't really see it,

because Scott was always very optimistic,

and he was very outgoing,

but I think I was still noticing something

after the first year.

He had mood swings, he had ups and downs.

And the second year trying to kill himself a couple of times

while he was with me.

I was supposed to get up in the morning

and find him dead next to me.

And he was amazed when he woke up,

I assume he didn't take enough.

You know, he was trying to overdose with medication

and maybe with drugs-- Heroin.

After his two attempts, he was really able to talk about it,

and communicate about it,

and I could really understand,

as much as I could,

the depth of the desperation.

He said he was in a hole.

In a tunnel, in a hole. There was no way out.

The pain was...

so profound, he--

He could not imagine going on with it, and living with it,

even though I was there.

It did not matter.

Me and his family were not enough to keep him alive.

At those moments of such despair and pain,

the only way out was to die.

I don't like to think that maybe I wasn't really clued in

to what was going on, though I probably wasn't,

because I wasn't willing to accept the fact

that, uh, anything so terrifying to me could be on the way.

And particularly because Scott didn't seem like

an unhappy person.

All it tells you is that there is so much more

to know about people you love

than you can ever really uncover.

DANA: What happened that weekend when Scott died?

I don't know.

Nope. I have not the faintest idea.

Not the faintest idea.

DANA: You found him.

What, what? You found him

"Who found him"? You found him.

I found him?

I don't remember doing that. No.

What's more, I think I can get along without memory.

I don't remember at all.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

MARTINE: I think it was a Saturday.

We came for the weekend up here.

Fourth of July weekend.

Scott was totally normal.

Fun, nice.

Suddenly, we-- You know, it was a beautiful afternoon,

and we said, "Where is Scott?"

Scott was not around.

I knew something was wrong.

Because I knew that the caretaker had guns.

And Scott knew that he had guns.

So I went there and Beati went in another direction.

I couldn't get inside the house because it was locked.

I don't exactly remember,

but I knew he didn't have the guns.

When I came back

I saw Beati came back,

and her lipstick was smeared around her mouth,

and she said "I just found Scott."

And she found him in the jeep-- In the car--

near the carriage house.

And what he had done

was take the hose from the vacuum cleaner,

and put the hose from the exhaust pipe

inside the car.

[LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S "MOONLIGHT SONATA" PLAYING]

HART: When my brother died,

I decided to make a film.

It was too painful for me to, like,

really deal with his suicide,

So I made the film about a, uh,

sculptor friend of my mother's who came from Spain

to make a sculpture for the grave.

I documented the process of making the sculpture.

And the instillation.

I thought that maybe in the course of making the film

I could find some meaning about my brother's suicide.

MARTINE: It took me about seven, eight years

to come back to normal.

I was mutilated when he died. I was mutilated.

Half of me was dead.

Completely dead.

HART: My parents were shattered.

It was like broken glass. Shattered.

HART: What-- What did happen to him?

Well, he obviously committed suicide.

HART: Why do you think he did it?

"Why did he do it?"

Well, he was...

in a terrible state of depression.

What brought on the depression, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know.

I can't tell you.

I can't tell you.

I can't tell you. The words don't exist

to tell another person

how destroyed

part of you has been.

They just don't exist.

I can't tell you. But I can tell you

that it's something you never recover from.

What is true is that life goes on,

but not the way you wanted it to,

and not the way you planned for it to.

But you don't recover.

I don't think.

[♪♪]

[BIRD CAWING]

HART: I thought if Evan was going to kill himself,

it'd be similar to my experience with my brother.

It was like a slow decline.

But Evan seemed to be actually doing pretty well.

What can I get you? BOY: I want a beer.

Light? Yeah.

[BOY BELCHES]

Ha-ha.

So why are you out so late?

Well, I've just seen a Kiss concert, man.

Kiss rules! Kiss rocks!

[BOTH YELLING INDISTINCTLY]

HART: That's good, now watch him leave.

Hey, hey, hey.

HART: He didn't pay.

Yeah. I just went like, "Hey!"

HART: Run, run, Mike.

Run, Evan.

You know, I mean, Evan was never, you know,

like an over-the-top, effervescent, happy kid.

But from all the-- The markers:

Is he getting into trouble? No.

Not at all.

Can you do the fish?

The fish! Like this.

I can do the snake. Like that.

I can do the seashell.

HART: Have we seen the police?

And we certainly did see the police

for a number of occasions before Wellspring.

No police.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

Take it with me.

DANA: Evan was doing so well. It was like a miracle.

We couldn't believe it. You just couldn't believe it.

Is this the same kid? I mean, here he is, and he's growing,

and he's popular, and he has his lovely friends,

and they have a wonderful time.

Suddenly there's hair there

and his jaw gets firmer and he's taller than I am.

And he's a man. He's a young man.

Very handsome, very popular with the girls.

But not really all that interested in them.

His voice went from like this to like this.

Like, you're-- You're in the shot.

Like--

[ALL LAUGHING]

Like, let's worry about the door shot,

let's do that when I'm not filming.

BOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, do the shot.

You know, like after he comes in you can do that--

BOY: All right.

DANA: He really hated being sick.

GIRL: We went-- We were like-- Did you hear us yelling outside?

We were like, "Evan!"

Three E, 3W, whatever.

He didn't wanna be different.

What teenage boy does?

Yeah, so I'll see you guys later.

In, like, half an hour. I just have to wait for--

Okay, it's just Angela's around the corner.

All right. Bye.

I'll see you soon. Bye!

[CHATTER]

GIRL: Oh, my gosh, what?

Oh, are we talking about this again?

Are you better now? Yay.

High five.

NICHOLAS: A lot of the time he seemed really out of it to me.

And I really attributed that to his drugs.

'Cause I remember going through a turnstile door with him

and him sort of just stopping in the middle,

or not really paying attention

to what was going on around him,

and I'd stop and say "What is it with this kid?"

And I'd say, "Oh, well, he's taking lithium."

DANA: We had been talking for a while

about trying without the medication,

'cause it made him tired, it made his mouth dry,

it was really something he didn't wanna do.

So we said "Okay.

You know, you-- You really wanna try this?"

And he really did.

And the doctor said, "Okay."

So he gradually went down in the lithium dose

over a course of four to six weeks.

LADD: "March 30th, 2005.

"Lithium 0.56.

"Now sub therapeutic.

"Was 1200 milligrams, didn't take meds for a few days,

"became quote 'more talkative.'

"At first, decreased lithium was difficult,

"now fine.

He feels better on lower dose."

After awhile I wasn't that conv--

You know, that he really was--

I mean, I knew he was bipolar, but--

He seemed so fine.

Also, I remember we talked to him head on,

"Do you have thoughts of suicide?

Do you wanna kill yourself? Do you wanna harm yourself?"

And he said no, you know.

"I don't."

[♪♪]

WOMAN: Kids know that if they say certain things,

or if they do certain things, they're gonna be stopped.

You know. Especially if they have parents

who are attentive to what's going on with them.

So if a kid really doesn't wanna be stopped,

he's not gonna say anything.

Evan may have gotten to the point where he got really--

Just better at masking it externally.

But internally, it's a lot of suffering,

and this was just the beginning, I mean,

it started when he was much younger,

and it wasn't going away.

HART: We went on vacation for two weeks in Nantucket.

And he seemed depressed. He seemed subdued.

Didn't seem too happy.

He wasn't doing good.

DANA: Then school started.

He's sullen, he's depressed.

As the weeks unfolded in September,

he started getting more anxious about his homework.

And at one point, he came to me and he said very seriously,

"Mom, I need your help.

I need you to stay after me."

HART: We had contacted his psychiatrist

and tried to make a meeting as soon as possible

to increase his dose of lithium.

DANA: We said, "Let's get him back on the lithium,

this experiment didn't work."

So we made an appointment with the doctor

for the following Tuesday. October 4th.

[♪♪]

ADAM: We hung out with him that Friday night.

We went to another teen club, me and Nick.

We invited Evan to go, but he just didn't want to.

I mean, it might've been his curfew or whatever,

he just didn't wanna go.

And we didn't think it was that big of a deal.

We were just like, "Whatever,

he wants to go home and chill, so..."

There was nothing really beforehand

that we could've seen.

I think if, like,

if someone is that sure

that they wanna do that to themselves,

they're gonna hide it from someone, you know.

NICHOLAS: The night he died I came over for dinner.

It was a Sunday evening.

We were all eating together,

and I know Evan had some homework that was unfinished,

and he was...

being a little obnoxious

about not wanting to do his homework,

and started putting his feet on the table,

and, you know, his mom was nagging him about his homework.

And they had a tiff.

And he was mad.

The fight was very intense.

As it often was.

And, um, you know, really just deeply intense.

I was doing the dishes, and I was hot.

You know. I was tired of this.

And he goes up the stairs and he said, "Mom, I hate you."

HART: And he shuts the door. And he locks it.

NICHOLAS: Leaving that night, I didn't think anything of it.

He wasn't behaving in any way that would make me think,

"This child is gonna end his life tonight."

Not in a million, million, million years.

I mean, on my good days

I've acted worse than him at dinner.

By this time it's around 10:00,

and I went into our bedroom with Mikey,

and we're both reading.

I was reading for a little bit,

and I go to check in on Evan.

And he's unlocked the door.

I go in he's sitting in his underwear

on his bed with his computer

And, you know, I came over and I said,

"Well, how you doing? What's-- What's happening?"

And he said, "I'm fine, Dad.

I'm doing my homework."

His computer, it looked as though he was

doing his homework,

so I go back to read with Mikey

for another five minutes, and, uh,

you know, it's Mikey's bedtime.

So I bring Mikey into the room

and Evan's not there.

[♪♪]

I immediately thought that he had jumped out the window.

But it was an airshaft so you couldn't really see anything.

Mikey shows up with this little penlight

and I shine it down the shaft,

and I think I see something but it's hard to tell.

Uh, and I'm starting to, you know,

feel pretty concerned at this point,

and I run downstairs to find the super,

who had access to the airshaft.

I guess I was downstairs and, uh,

about to recline and watch TV

and I was, uh, half asleep, I guess.

And nothing unusual,

I just heard a noise.

And I thought nothing of it.

I thought maybe the girl upstairs dropped something.

Nothing. Nothing.

And I guess, I don't know how many minutes later,

uh, somebody came banging on-- Was banging on my door.

We were with Roger, we had the light.

I had, um, a cell phone and keys.

And, uh, we went through this labyrinth, some kind of way.

And Hart got there first. And, um, and Evan was there.

And, um, he was on his back,

and there was blood.

I thought he might be alive.

But I-- I felt his pulse, and he wasn't.

So it got pretty chaotic.

I was screaming, "Evan, Evan,

Evan, Evan, Evan, Evan!"

You know, "Evan." I just-- "Please."

And I went-- And Hart was in front of me,

and I said, "Get out of the way, I wanna give him mouth-to-mouth,

I wanna-- Move out of the way."

And he said, "Dana, just go--

The paramedics are coming, go upstairs, take care of Michael,

take care of-- It's okay. And he was very calm.

I called Nick

to come and look after

Mikey and Dana,

'cause I had to go to the hospital with-- With Evan.

I was there comforting Michael,

and we were praying and I thought

that maybe he'd still live,

maybe he's just broken some bones, maybe he'll live.

And, um, at some point,

I don't know when, but Nick showed up.

NICHOLAS: We pulled up in front of the house,

there were police cars outside,

it was, like, "This is fucking real. This is real."

And I walked into the apartment,

and there were police officers downstairs.

You know, they looked at me

and started approaching me to say, you know, "Who are you?"

And I pushed them out of the way and just ran to Dana.

And Michael was so amazing, 'cause he kept saying,

"Mom, he's gonna be okay, Mom, he's gonna be okay.

Mom, he's gonna be okay, Mom, he's gonna be okay."

And we're just holding each other, and then, you know,

then Hart called and I just knew immediately--

Just knew immediately what happened, that he was dead.

I just couldn't believe it.

So then, um, Jean drove me to the hospital,

and he was at St. Vincent's, where he had been before,

and I was taken into the room where he was,

on the stretcher, and, um--

Um, you know, he wasn't cold, and he had his, um,

he had his boxer shorts on.

I took the sheet down like this, I held him,

and, um, I closed his eyes.

And that was it.

And then...

I got a call in the car

from Nick,

and he said, "I found his note.

I found his note."

[♪♪]

NICHOLAS: I remember the officers asking me

whether there was a suicide note,

and I hadn't even thought about that,

and we looked around his room,

and there was nothing, and then he pointed to the computer,

and opened it, touched the screen,

and, sure enough,

a letter came up.

[♪♪]

To be honest,

the gist of the letter was...

what every fucking 15-year-old

thinks about themself.

That "I'm not good enough,

"no one likes me,

things won't get better."

The difference is Evan felt that

20,000 times stronger

than any normal 15-year-old,

and he believed more strongly

that things wouldn't get better

and that there was no future,

and living was too painful,

too difficult, and...

death was his only answer.

But it was, I mean, verbatim--

I could've checked off that list and, you know,

if he had showed me that note before he made his decision,

I could've gone through it with him and said,

"Thought that, thought that, thought that.

"I realized they're all untrue for me,

"they're definitely all untrue for you.

"You know, and some of the qualities about yourself

"that make you feel different right now,

"you're gonna learn in five years

"that those are your best qualities,

"and those are what set you apart from people

"and make you interesting

and attract others to you."

But, you know,

that opportunity did not arise.

So, what do you make of that?

I think

that he foresaw--

He must have been getting

a glimpse of adult life,

and that he foresaw

that he was not going to make it

in the way that he wanted to make it.

You know, in psychiatry,

bipolar is our cancer.

It kills people.

You do everything you can, and some people can be saved,

and probably we could've saved--

Definitely we could've saved him for a while,

but he would have gone off his medication,

They-- All these kids do, they all go off them.

And when he went off, he just went so fast.

Maybe his illness was changing

into the type where people really do get crazy.

He never talked about any of this?

Any of that. No.

No? He never talked--? Any of that.

He denied feeling it, he never talked about any of this.

Never did he say anything like he didn't trust his friends?

But this is crazy talk. That's crazy talk.

HART: I mean, you know... Crazy talk,

but it's done so sanely.

Numbered, and so precise.

That's what makes me so mad with all the portrayals of, uh,

mental illness that you see on TV and movies,

it's like raving, crazy, foaming at the mouth,

not, you know, "sanely" sitting there--

Hyper-sanely-- typing this, you know, horrible thing out.

Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch.

Just with thought, already knowing he was gonna do it.

You know, that's insanity.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

On behalf of the congregation of this church

I would like to welcome all of you

in mourning the passing of Evan today.

This is a place...

MARTINE: When I went to Evan's funeral,

I felt that I was going through the same thing again,

it was like a repeat. It was the same church,

it was the same family.

It was that little boy, 35 years later.

And Beati was with me.

Scott's mother-- And Evan's grandmother,

and Hart's mother-- was sitting next to me

and hold-- Hanging onto me,

and she would say during the ceremony,

she would say, "Martine, why did Scott die?

Why did Scott kill himself?"

And, you know, she knew that she had a son

who committed suicide,

and who died, but she could not remember.

[CONGREGATION PRAYING]

I was briefly trying to explain to her

that it was the same disease,

that he died for the same reasons Evan died.

I feel relieved to know that Evan has found peace,

even if it means that we must take on pain.

Through his memory we realize

the extreme precariousness and preciousness of life.

We must cherish and savor the lives we have,

the relationships we enjoy,

as much as we can for as long as we can.

[SOFT MUSIC PLAYING]

♪ May God bless And keep you always ♪

♪ May your wishes All come true ♪

♪ May you always do for others ♪

♪ That others do for you ♪

♪ May you build a ladder To the stars ♪

♪ Climb on every rung ♪

♪ May you stay ♪

BOTH: ♪ Forever young ♪

A lot of the time, before I go to sleep,

sometimes I just, I mean,

I can't help but think about him.

You don't wanna, like,

make everything depressed

by talking about it every day, you know?

But it's always there, you know.

I mean, you can't not talk about it.

When I read his note,

I could tell that it was spirit of the moment,

and that, hopefully at least,

he didn't mean some of the stuff that he said.

His note, it didn't come from the Evan I knew.

It was just-- It was depressing

to see, like, just the horrible stuff he said

about not having friends, and...

I know he didn't mean it.

BOTH: ♪ May you stay ♪

♪ Forever young ♪

To thy hands, oh merciful savior,

we command thy servant, Evan.

Receive him into the arms of thy mercy,

into the blessed rest of everlasting peace,

and into the glorious company

of the saints in light.

Amen. ALL: Amen.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

They forgot to, uh, dig the--

MAN:

Everything but the hole.

Well, anyway, who would've told them where to dig it?

I don't know how these things work.

I don't know, you know.

Somebody has to mark off where--

All right, we'll do it, we'll do it.

[THUNDER CRASHES]

Oh, you.

WOMAN:

Oh, he's laughing, all right.

Mm-hm. You better believe it.

He's roaring over this weather.

He that raised up Jesus from the dead

will also give life to our mortal bodies

in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We command to almighty God our brother, Evan,

and we commit his body to the ground,

earth to earth, ashes to ashes,

dust to dust. Amen.

ALL: Amen.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

MARTINE: When somebody is that deep

and far into depression,

in such incredible pain, there's nothing we can do.

Nothing.

BEATRICE: It's survival--

Is really very difficult.

But, anyway, you do the best you can.

Why else does he put us there?

You know that. There isn't any--

There isn't any choice.

If you found one, believe me, deary, pass it along.

'Cause there is no choice.

There isn't a choice to cope.

There isn't.

I have a family. I have people I love and people who love me,

and, uh, you really have no choice

but to get up and put one foot in front of the other.

And, um, basically,

I think the thing that I think about most is, uh,

is I just can't believe it.

I can't believe this. I can't believe it.

I can't believe I'm sitting here.

I can't believe...

that, um...

that I gave birth to this boy and raised him...

and buried him. I can't believe it.

It's just a sense of disbelief.

I don't know if I'll ever really understand that it's true.

That this really happened.

I can't believe it really happened.

Tell me it's a dream.

I can't believe it. I can't.

And I can't believe that the days continue to go by,

and the--

And that the world continues to rotate

without him.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

Oh, nice. Here, look at that.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

Into the ground again.

I hope this tree grows strong and proud,

and beautiful, to remind us of Evan.

And always provide beauty and shade

for future generations.

DANA: And that every time we see it,

we'll always think of how much we loved him,

and how we'll always remember him.

That's the part that is gonna, I guess, change,

which is that as time passes

I'll begin to believe that it's true,

and that, basically, what I have left of him

is those-- The 15 years that we had,

and, uh...

that there was beauty in that.

And joy, and, uh,

that maybe there's a lesson, or maybe we can learn something,

or-- Or communicate something, but, um,

you know, in terms of coping it's just,

you know, it's our choice.

I don't have a choice.

There is none.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

DANA: Even though we lost this battle,

we'll never forget the experience we had

at Wellspring.

[MAN GRUNTING]

HART: I volunteered to make beams

for the barn at Wellspring.

By the farm and sawmill.

And it was a way of giving something back to Wellspring,

that had given us so much.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

DANA: And that's gonna be a building where other kids

are gonna be able to get the kind of therapy that Evan got.

These beams here, these are ours.

All the side beams,

and look at that inscription over there.

DANA: Here was an opportunity to make something physical

in memory of Evan.

People can say, "Well, who's Evan?" It doesn't matter.

What matters is, is that, you know,

somebody loved Evan enough to...

want to remember his name.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY IN THE DISTANCE]

MAN: So we come thanking God for what he has blessed,

for the sacredness of this land,

asking that God will continue to watch over

everyone who works here and all those who've been part of it.

[APPLAUSE]

[CHATTER]

[♪♪]