Hope & Healing: Family Copes with Loss

Complete shock. Loss. Extreme sadness. Those are the words Kevin Smith used to describe his feelings when he learned his 26-year-old twin sister had committed suicide Jan. 13, 2003.

Losing a loved one, a family member, a friend, can be devastating, but losing that person because she couldn’t bear to spend another day, another hour on this earth and so ends her own life doubles the loss, the pain, the tremendous sadness.

The Smith family — Tom and Fran, Karla’s parents, and her twin brother, Kevin — have struggled for the past 10 months to deal with Karla’s death and go on with their own lives.

To read the rest of the story, please see The Messenger newspaper.