There’s Always A Tomorrow Battling Suicide By Michael Kent
D
errick Cox remembers the steel being cold and hard on his lips. It smelled of carbon and tasted of oil. He was in a deep, dark hole and saw no way out. The gun in his mouth was his relief. It was a way to not be a burden on others. For a fleeting moment he thought of his own kids. His whole life he wanted to be a father. “I didn’t want to miss all the memories with them,” Derrick says. The next morning Derrick woke up with a booze bottle and a gun next to him. The thought of what nearly happened was sobering. That’s when Cox went to the Veterans Administration (VA) and sought help. What followed was a multi-year journey that had plenty of hard times, but also plenty of victories. “There’s always a tomorrow,” Cox says. “No matter how bad things get today, you can always do it again tomorrow and do it better.”
16 – GATHER Veterans
