To the editor:

My daughter, Brianna Mitchell, died one month ago. I am grateful for the sympathy I have received from this community since then. I am overwhelmed by the stories many people have shared with me about their own tragic losses and struggles to obtain mental health care.

One woman who has multiple sclerosis and suffers from depression told me a beautiful story about my daughter. She and Brianna were in a class together at Bert Nash and one day she was shaking so severely from her MS that she couldn’t write the class notes. Brianna reached out to her, smiled her beautiful radiant smile and offered to write the notes for her. The woman told me how much it helped her to know that someone noticed her struggle, smiled and reached out to help.

Brianna’s tragic death has prompted many letters on this editorial page that plead for improved mental health care services and the need to seek cures. The latter point is one with which Brianna would have agreed because it was her hope to someday do research on bipolar disorder. Until those cures are found, our community must find solutions for our immediate local needs for mental health care facilities to prevent needless loss of life and to ease the struggles of the patients and families dealing with mental illness. Let’s learn from Brianna to recognize their struggle and reach out with the same gentle compassion that she showed a fellow patient in need. Let her life not be one lived in vain,

Kathy E. Mitchell,

Lawrence