Thelma French and her son Aaron who killed himself.

Thelma French and her son Aaron who killed himself.

In the dark days after her son took his own life, Thelma French read of a successful American suicide prevention programme. Here, she tells CARROLL DU CHATEAU, was a glimmer of hope ...

Thelma French knows about the pain she is trying to prevent so thoroughly the tears still sit behind her hazel eyes much of the time. Tall, attractive, super-efficient, warm and wonderful with people, French holds down a big job in human resources. In her spare time she is a JP and marriage celebrant

But behind the professional exterior the pain still sits there. The death of her son Aaron has torn the protective coating off her heart. "I never want to see other people go through the pain we've had," she says.

Typically, French did something about it. Her answer: to introduce the Yellow Ribbon youth suicide prevention project to New Zealand. Already the United States-based initiative, which works through schools and the community, claims to have prevented 1500 deaths.

And for French, saving even one shining star like Aaron, who died three years ago, has made the arduous task of getting Yellow Ribbon established in New Zealand worthwhile.

In 1997 French was holding her small family together and, she thought, managing reasonably well. Certainly her marriage had fallen apart, her job was demanding, Aaron was smoking dope, having problems with his job. But basically they were coping. Aaron was a sensitive young man with the "neatest personality." Says his mother, "I absolutely adored him. He had the most lovely, really thoughtful nature."

In the evenings she'd lie in bed in their Howick home and talk to Aaron through the wall. He was 17. A question that he asked her just days before he died, still teases her mind: "Mum, what's heaven like?"

"He said he was bored and I responded, 'How can you possibly be bored with everything you have?"'

What French didn't realise was that four days before, Aaron had been sacked from his job as a courier driver. His self-esteem had plummeted. He had had 32 warnings from his boss over three months. Says his mother, "With the marijuana he just didn't remember to pick up and drop off parcels. It had started to affect his short-term memory. He'd be sitting on the couch talking and he'd just drop off to sleep."

Looking back, there were more clues. "On Tuesday he asked me to take him to Colville where my Dad was born. It was our special place. I said that I couldn't - I had to go to work, we'd go there over the next few weekends."

Days before, again without telling his mother, Aaron had given his Matchbox toy collection to the little boy next door.