MINNEHAHA COUNTY, S.D. (KELO) — Jamie Meyer wanted to bring people joy. And he did.
“He was all about making people laugh,” Jamie’s mom Maranda Meyer of Minnehaha County said Tuesday. “At school, he would hide in a cupboard and [was a] jump-out-when-the-teacher-came-in-the-room kind of kid.”
“Visited me often,” Jamie’s grandma Mary Mayer of Sioux Falls said Tuesday. “When I moved to Sioux Falls five years ago, all of a sudden he’d show up at my house and sit and play with my puppy, and we’d talk a little bit.”
“He very much was tender-hearted and wore it on his sleeve,” Meyer said. “But he loved, he just loved to make people laugh.”
“We miss him every day,” Mayer said.
Like so many people, Jamie struggled with mental health.
“I told him almost daily, I would have done anything for him, ‘I would do anything for you,’ ’cause I could tell he was struggling,” Meyer said. “But he never shared those burdens. He carried them on his own.”
In April of 2020, Jamie died by suicide. He was 15 years old. Words can’t describe the pain for his loved ones and mother.
“I went up, and I crawled on the trailer to feel a pulse, and he was already cold,” Meyer said.
“What happened took half her heart away, and she’s not gotten it back ever again,” Mayer said.
“Grief is just terrible, you know?” Meyer said.
In the wake of this tragedy, a class at the Helpline Center helped Meyer work through that grief.
“It was amazing: ‘Surviving After Suicide,'” Meyer said. “For like six weeks, we worked through a book. Yes, it was very helpful to know that not one situation caused the whole Jenga puzzle to collapse but yet many pieces that made it unstable.”
The 437 Project will kick off their run across South Dakota on Sept. 19; 12 runners will make the journey together to raise money for the Helpline Center, which connects people to mental health resources. Jamie’s mom was at the event in 2023 in Sioux Falls at the Levitt Shell which celebrated the completion of The 437 Project’s run that year. She embraced runner Lisa Larson who herself years ago survived a suicide attempt.
“I think when I hugged her, she even cried … I don’t even know how to explain it,” Meyer said. “To know that somebody feels what I feel.”
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, you can call or text 988. You can also start a chat with it. Over the past two years, the Helpline Center has received more than 20,000 calls, texts, and chats through 988.
KELOLAND’s Dan Santella will be wearing a headband as he completes his legs across the state with The 437 Project in September; he is one of the 12 runners in 2024. On that headband will be names of people lost to suicide, including Jamie’s. If you’d like to have your loved one’s name on the headband, Dan would love to add it; just email him at [email protected].
