After losing her son and husband, mother says it’s time to start talking about suicide

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Candles are all that remain from a memorial for Dakota outside the Lewis home in Montgomery on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. "There must have been over a hundred people out there." Denise Lewis said of the number of people that came to pay their respects to her son. "He was a dreamer, he always dreamed big." Denise added. | Brian Powers~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: April 2, 2011 5:38PM

“I promised Dakota I’d quit for the new year, but I think it’s gonna have to wait.”

Denise Lewis is sitting at her kitchen table in her Montgomery home on Monday. She’s smoking a cigarette and telling a story.

On New Year’s Eve day, her son, Dakota, was playing a prank. The pair were at the grocery store, and Dakota, often a jokester, was taking everything out of her cart as she put items in it.

They discussed their plans to enroll Dakota in classes at Waubonsee Community College on Monday morning, after the holiday had passed. A recent graduate of Aurora Central Catholic High School, Dakota turned 19 years old last week.

Minutes before the new year, Dakota told his mother he was tired. He retired to his room.

The next morning, she walked into Dakota’s room and found he had committed suicide.

The words, “I love you Mom” were written across his chest.

“He wasn’t depressed. It was crazy,” Denise said, sobbing. “For two hours at the hospital, I held him and he never got cold.”

Days after her son’s death, and a year and a half after she found her husband, who had killed himself in the basement of their Montgomery home, Denise is sick and tired of the whispers about Dakota.

“I’m tired of people coming up and whispering, ‘I heard ...’” she said. “I can say, out loud, that yes, Dakota committed suicide. He had a moment.”

Remembering Dakota

If you read Dakota Lewis’ obituary, you would know that he was a member of St. Peter Church in Aurora , and that he lettered in football, track and wrestling. He was a member of Snowball, Lucky Fifty Club and he loved to fish, hike and hunt.

You would know Dakota leaves behind his sister, Aubrey, and two brothers, Dominic and Cody.

What you wouldn’t know was that he was wonderful, his mother said of her youngest son.

“He was very bright, very ambitious and very sensitive.”

Dakota wanted to own his own power-washing business. He picked up the new students’ packet with his mom two weeks ago.

He was always coming up with new ideas to become a millionaire, said Dakota’s best friend, Sean Callahan, 18, of North Aurora.

You also wouldn’t know that he broke up with his girlfriend the month prior and had experimented with marijuana. But this past month, his mom said he seemed upbeat.

Dakota had taken on the role of caretaker after his father’s suicide.

“He took on too much for a young boy,” Lewis said. “Maybe we all leaned on him a bit too much.”

Sean said Dakota had “his moments” of depression, but it was never anything drastic.

“He was angry abut his dad — and that’s why I never thought it would happen.”

Inexplicably, Denise said her son wasn’t depressed. He didn’t show signs or hint that he would ever take his life. Posthumously, his cell phone records revealed nothing to make her believe differently.

There was only a note. Scrolled in a leather-bound journal, Dakota wrote that this wasn’t the life God had meant for him. And so it had to end. He wrote that he was sorry and that his mother was perfect. That she was a saint.

Denise’s hands tremble as she reads it aloud.

“I’m surrendering to God’s will ... before I lose any more of myself ... I was not meant for this life.”

A bigger problem

Denise Lewis is convinced part of the problem is that people aren’t talking about suicide enough.

“She’s absolutely right,” said Stephanie Weber, executive director of Batavia-based Suicide Prevention Services.

Weber said that statistically, Dakota was more likely to commit suicide because of his father’s death. He and his brother found their father in the basement after he took his life.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the third leading cause of death in 15- to 24-year-olds. While Weber said that the group’s push for more programs in local schools has been successful — including Dakota’s school, ACC — students are also being bombarded with unhealthy information about suicide.

For instance, Weber said, it’s easy for kids to go on the Internet to find ways to kill themselves. A Google search of “how to commit suicide” returns more than 4 million results.

The biggest mistake parents make regarding suicide is “not talking to their kids,” Weber said. Warning signs include depression, drastic changes in eating habits, drug use and sleeping too much.

From flowing tears, Lewis’ mood suddenly changes.

She is angry that kids will even consider committing suicide. Lewis said Dakota had counseled many classmates through difficult times as part of Snowball, a drug prevention youth group at area schools. Only last week he was texting a classmate who was talking about ending his life.

“He was telling another boy ‘you don’t want to do this.’ He was trying to save someone else. But it was Dakota that didn’t make it.”

And his death, she insists, should not be a taboo topic.

When the thought of suicide “gets in your head,” she said, “it means you hurt.”

‘A tragic loss’

The Rev. William Etheredge, Aurora Central’s principal, described Dakota as a “wonderful young man” involved in many activities at the school.

“His death is certainly a tragic loss,” he said.

At a Mass dedicated to his memory before school Monday, almost 90 students attended, including many recent alumni, Etheredge said. Denise said that she wishes Dakota would have been around to see the outpouring of love.

“Somewhere I guess he lost, but so much had happened since his death,” Denise said. “The world’s going to miss him and he didn’t know that.”