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In Loving Memory of Kristina
Calco
12/26/1989 -
12/4/2005
One blustery snowy morning in December 2005, we
awoke to find that our 15 year old daughter, Kristina Calco, had
abruptly ended her own life.
Kristina had been
approaching her 16th birthday with an excitement which
was barely containable. Yet for some reason unbeknownst to us at the
time, this beautiful young girl who on the surface seemed to have
just about everything going for her, felt the need to check out of
life for good.
We, like many parents in
this tragic situation, were left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately
for us, in addition to 2 suicide notes, Kristina left behind page
after page of detailed journal entries, dozens of MYSPACE personal
emails and numerous AOL Instant Messenger Conversation screen
prints. We are now able to piece together a timeline for Kristina
which begins with Bullying and Teasing from at least the
7th grade on.
This is the story of
Kristina Arielle Calco.
She wrote about herself in
the summer before 7th grade:
"Hi, I'm Kristina Calco
and I'm 121/2 yrs old going on 13 on Dec. 26th
(the day after Christmas aren't I lucky?) You are
reading about my life in my preteen/teenage years. Let me tell you
a few things about me. I have wavy/curly dark brown hair an inch
or two longer than my shoulders and dark...and brown eyes. I wear
glasses and am a little pale, not so much anymore because I got
tan over the summer. I'm 4 ft 101/2 (I know I'm short
for my age, 20th percentile, but I'm growing.) I'm in
7th grade this year and am dying to be 13 (then I'll
finally be a teenager!). I have to get braces really soon &
right now I'm wearing a twin block to move my jaw forward. I had
an overbite but it's almost gone because my treatment for that
will be over soon. Although braces are no walk in the sun, they've
got to be better than this! I'm not popular but I'm not a loser
and I'm actually pretty shy around other kids, unless I know them
well."
Here is a photo of
Kristina from this time in her life.
In middle school, Kristina was
a 4.0 honor student who always strived for perfection in everything
that she did. She was extremely artistic and her work was chosen not
only to be on the cover of the school yearbook but she was also
selected to design the school t-shirts. In an effort to overcome her
shyness, she joined the student video announcements staff, the
yearbook staff and the newspaper staff. And although she was
admittedly not the best at sports, she joined the Swim team, the
Volleyball team, the Track team and even joined the Ski Club. She
signed up for Forensics (very similar to Debate) and earned a 3rd
place trophy in the 2003 State Tournament. She later wrote that no
one would ever know how hard that was for her. That was actually one
of the proudest moments of her life. Kristina supported her school
in every way imaginable and attended numerous sporting events, such
as basketball and football. At the end of the 8th grade,
Kristina tried out for and made the JV Cheerleading team for High
School. She wrote in her journal:
"Me, Kristina Arielle Calco,
I made the cheerleading squad for high school! JV too! I'm so
proud of myself!"
Here are a couple of photos of
Kristina with her cheer outfit on.
Despite all of her
accomplishments however, there were some who would choose to drag
Kristina down.
Our first indication of what
had happened was found in Kristina's suicide note, which was written
in the form of a poem. She wrote:
"I knew I was always the
ugly one. Don't say that's a lie because you don't know what some
kids have said and done. It hurts to think about how mean some
people could be. Even when I started to look a little better, they
still couldn't see."
When we found that note, we
were absolutely dumbfounded. Not only could we not make heads or
tails of it, but we had absolutely no idea why she would write that.
She had blossomed into a beautiful girl. And so our search for
answers began.
Here are some pictures of
Kristina from High School, many of which she selected to post on her
MYSPACE site.
Initially, we found 2 Instant Message
Conversations in which Kristina said to a friend:
"You should have heard what they
said to me in middle school. It was awful. I felt like crying.
Everyday this boy would tell me I was ugly and nasty, and then he
got other people to say it too. It was torture and a living
hell."
In another IM conversation, she tells another
person:
"Everyone I've ever liked has always rejected me for
reasons of 'God, you are so ugly' or 'I'd never go out with you'."
When the other party questioned her about whether these words were
actually spoken to her and what she did about it, Kristina replied
"yes, they actually said those words to me and I cried a
lot."
By this point, we began to question her group of friends,
which included both her Middle school friends as well as her
High School friends. Yes, it was all true. We were told that
Kristina was teased and tormented and ridiculed throughout her
middle school years and up to at least the 9th grade.
Neither she nor any of her friends ever told a single adult about
what was going on. We were told that there was a particular group of
boys that did this to her and that every day the girls would have to
console Kristina in the cafeteria. Her friends would reassure
Kristina that she was not ugly and that she was beautiful. They
thought they were doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the bullying
never ended. Kristina, who was such a frail and sensitive
girl, was made to feel ugly on a daily basis by a group of
her own peers. By the time she was in the 9th grade, she had
internalized the verbal assaults until she believed them with
every grain of her soul.
To her friends and her classmates, Kristina, to quote a
fellow classmate,
"was one of those rare gems that was as gorgeous on the
inside as she was on the outside. She was incredibly
multitalented, intelligent, and articulate, and she had a certain
grace and class to her that many others her age lacked greatly.
There was something about her that just made the entire room light
up. She exuded radiance and had a sparkling personality that led
others to feel better without warning."
Kristina cared about everyone, to the detriment of even
herself. She was kind and considerate and caring and always made
people feel so good about themselves. Kristina worried about her
friends, her bullies and the world around her. She wrote about her
deep desire to help humanity in some way and that it was her hope to
become a great scientist and find a cure for Cancer and for
AIDS.
At our home though, Kristina's shy and quiet personality
gradually changed during those crucial Middle school years. She
never told on her bullies. She never would let us inside her own
private world of suffering. So we began to see someone who was never
happy, and nearly always angry about one thing or another. Her self
image suffered terribly. She began to see herself as ugly and she
outwardly expressed this to us on what now looking back seems to
have been a daily basis. It never mattered what we or anyone, for
that matter, said. She saw something else. We told ourselves that
Kristina's behavior was her "normal" progression through teenage
life. After all, she had always been so shy and had worried about
things beyond her years from such a young age. We now realize that
because of what was happening to Kristina at school, and since she
did not have an outlet for her feelings, she expressed them openly
without hesitation when amongst her family members. Unfortunately,
we did not recognize Kristina's behavior as Depression. When we look
back at her journals, we can now see that she had been suffering
from depression for a very, very long time.
This is the Eulogy that I wrote and read at Kristina's
visitation:
My daughter was a very
sensitive young girl of 15 who sadly was just never meant to make it
to her 16th birthday, which would have been
12/26/2005.
To us and everyone else, this Saturday, (December
3rd, 2005) seemed not much different from any other
Saturday. Kristina slept in, ate breakfast, showered and dressed.
She asked to go to the library to get books for a project she was
working on about John F. Kennedy. I dropped her off at the library
while I drove to pick up my other daughter from dance class. After
that I drove Kristina to the mall to do some shopping. She helped
her friend get ready for the dance and decided that she'd like to go
after all. When she came home she went directly upstairs to fix her
hair. When she was done with her hair and makeup, we drove to get a
dress at Marshall Fields. She chose the dress she wanted, we paid
and we just cut the tags so she could wear it out. We drove home to
get the $10 entrance fee and my husband. Kristina asked me how she
looked, to which I replied that she looked great, which of course
wasn't what she wanted to hear. She had wanted me to tell her that
she looked beautiful, which of course she did. Kristina told us the
dance was over at 11 pm, so my husband arrived shortly after that to
pick her up. He called her cell at which time she told
him she'd made an error and that it was really over at 11:30.
She came out sometime around 11:40pm, came home, showed the other
kids her dress, and proceeded to get on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).
I must have told her 6 times to take off her dress and get ready for
bed. She asked me to take her picture first, which didn't seem an
unusual request as she did this for every dance she had. I took her
picture and then went up to bed. That's the last time I saw Kristina
alive. We later found out that she had been on AIM and MY SPACE
until at least 2 am, maybe longer.
In an effort to try to give you a perspective into Kristina's
inner turmoil, I'm going to skip to the last few years of Kristina's
life, which had become particularly trying.
Kristina was maturing and going through puberty, as well as
dealing with the pressures of getting good grades at school, peer
pressure, and of course dealing with boys. In addition to these
typical pressures that every teenager has, Kristina placed a lot of
additional pressure on herself. We found in her journal that she had
a goal for herself...that before she was 16 "everything would be
perfect....I would be gorgeous & have perfect hair & teeth
& clothes & I'd have a boyfriend & I would have had my
1st kiss & I would be popular & have awesome
shoes & be really thin & tall and all of the boys would
wanna get with me & I'd be on Varsity Cheerleading & do
Volleyball and have sweet abs & skinny thighs & fit into
Abercrombie pants and be rich and ya know I'd be sooo happy &
have a 4.0 still, and ya know if that doesn't happen I told myself
I'd have to kill myself. I know how I'm gonna do it too...but
nevermind for now...."
Kristina mentioned suicide in her journals many times dating
back at least as far as Jan. 2005.
Outwardly, Kristina put on a happy face. She had the kindest,
biggest heart, and in her journal expressed that she could never be
cruel to anyone and could never understand in her sweet 15 year old
mind, how people could be so mean to other people. She said it
actually 'caused her pain' to see that. She told me about going to
parties where everyone seemed so out of control. She told me about
how she tried drinking and how she hated the feeling, and swore
she'd never do it again. She told me that she felt guilty. I told
her that nearly everyone tries it and that she didn't have to
participate in anything she didn't feel was right. After all,
everything in life is a choice. She so wanted to be the "good girl"
that she thought she ought to be. She had such high expectations for
herself. But on the other hand, she would never fault other people
for the choices that they made. She would never judge anyone else.
So she just simply chose to extract herself from those situations.
She had standards for herself as well as standards that she imagined
others had of her.
Paired with these high standards, was Kristina's extremely
low self esteem. She wrote in her journal about a girl that she
admired. Some girl that was 'really pretty and really nice, too' and
how every time that she saw her, the girl would smile at her. "Isn't
that nice", she wrote. "Everyone likes her. I wish I was like that."
Kristina didn't realize that to everyone else, she was that
girl.
Kristina never saw the gorgeous, bright, brilliant,
intelligent special person that she was. She couldn't stand looking
into mirrors because all she ever saw looking back at herself was
"ugliness and fat". "So I don't look". "I just pretend I look really
good. Sometimes it's really hard though, because I don't
like lying...thinking...that I'm pretty when I'm
not."
In addition to having feelings of being horribly
unattractive, Kristina wrote too, that she was extremely sad and
alone and hurt. But, Kristina would never want anyone to take on any
of her pain. Even in her suicide note, she felt the need to
constantly reiterate how sorry she was and that she didn't want
anyone to have to live with any sort of guilt. This was going to be
her decision, her choice and her fault. She wanted everyone to know
that they had all touched her life in ways that she would never ever
forget. She wanted everyone to know that she loved them all so very
much and that they were all such wonderful and amazing people. She
wanted to let everyone know that she would always be with them and
be in their hearts. She was thankful that everyone had been so good
to her.
In the last few weeks, a lot had happened in Kristina's life.
Things that were on her 'to-do' list, just weren't materializing the
way that she had so hoped they would. In her eyes, everything wasn't
perfect....she wasn't gorgeous, she didn't have perfect hair &
teeth & clothes & she didn't have a boyfriend. She wasn't
popular & didn't have awesome shoes & wasn't really thin
& tall and couldn't see that all of the boys probably did wanna
get with her & she hadn't made the Varsity Cheerleading team
& she hadn't made the Volleyball team and she didn't have sweet
abs & skinny thighs & she didn't fit into Abercrombie pants
and she wasn't rich and she definitely wasn't happy. In her minds'
eye, about the only thing she did have was the 4.0. She didn't see
the treasure of Kristina that she really was.
For Kristina, typical teenage pressures, combined with her
self imposed pressures eventually consumed her. If you can imagine
trying to focus on reading a book and in the background you hear a
lawn mower getting progressively louder and louder and louder until
you couldn't focus and even forgot that you were supposed to be
reading a book at all.
For whatever reason, in the wee morning hours of Sunday
December 4th, Kristina lost her focus. The stage had been
set and with such a frail and sensitive soul, she just couldn't bear
the pain that had consumed her. In that one tiny infinitesimal
instant, Kristina made the choice to kill herself. Suicide seemed
her only escape....her only way out....her only way to end the
pain.
You see, in Kristina's mind....life was like a test, where
there was supposed to be a perfect outcome. She was always
looking for a certain set of steps to follow....a clear &
precise beginning, middle and end, and life just doesn't conform to
those rules, despite all the wishful thinking in the world. For
Kristina, it was like trying to solve a math equation for which
she'd been given the wrong formula from the start. No matter what
she did, she just couldn't get the correct answer.
I wanted to be sure to stress to all of you that had Kristina
truly known the devastation that her death would bring, she would
never, ever have done it. And I'm just as certain that she couldn't
possibly have really wanted what ended up happening to have actually
happened. This young, naive 15 year old girl with a romantic
image of what she had by this point trivialized....Suicide...made a
truly fateful decision in what seems to be the heat of a single
solitary moment in time that will never be forgotten by anyone that
she ever loved or that loved her. She wanted her pain to end and as
she saw it this was her only way out. You see, Kristina was such a
bright girl and she had set her goals so very, very high that they
were simply unattainable by anyone, including herself.
In closing I want you all to know that Kristina could never
have understood the finality of what she did. She wrote about it so
often as if she could have done it any day or time, just as you or I
would take a breath. I know that in her mind that she imagined it
would be like simply walking away down a long road and just not
coming back. In my heart, I know that she couldn't possibly have
fully realized how one person's life could touch so many, many other
people's lives. She didn't understand that once you are gone,
you can never, never ever come
back.
--The End
Kristina wrote in a 7th grade journal
entry:
"The only reason I even bother to tell my sad sob story is
that someday the public might know what a teenage girl goes
through. So as you know nice guys finish last....well it might as
well be nice girls finish last, too".
Tragic as our story is to tell and live each day....I feel
that there are things to be learned from Kristina's
story.
--Written in the hopes that no one else might ever have to
awaken to a such a blustery snowy morning as we
did.
~Michelle Calco 
To read
Kristina's complete Life Story, please visit her personal web page
by clicking the photo below:
For more related reading, please click
on the following links:
BULLYCIDE IN
AMERICA
Moms speak out about the
Bullying/Suicide Connection
Signs of Potential Suicide in Adolescents: 1. Change in eating / sleeping habits
2. Withdrawal from friends, family, regular activities
3. Violent actions, rebellious behavior, running away
4. Drug & alcohol use
5. Unusual neglect of personal appearance
6. Marked personality change
7. Persistent boredom, difficulty concentrating, or a
decline in the quality of schoolwork
8. Frequent complaints of stomachaches, headaches,
fatigue
9. Loss of interest in pleasurable activities
10. Not tolerating praise or rewards
11. May complain of being a "bad" person or feeling
rotten inside.
12. Give verbal hints such as "I won't be a problem
for you much longer".
13. Put his or her affairs in order: i.e. give away
possessions or clean up their room
14. Become suddenly cheerful after a period of
depression
15. Actually verbalize the desire to kill themself Remember that it's Crucial in Adolescents to pay attention to the small signs that may seem
insignificant. Source: American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry BULLYING, DEPRESSION & TEEN SUICIDE http://www.jaredstory.com/
Signs of Possible Bullying....children may:
- be frightened of walking to and from school
- change their usual route
- not want you to go on the school bus
- beg you to drive them to school
- be unwilling to go to school (or be 'school phobic')
- feel ill in the mornings
- begin truanting
- begin doing poorly in their school work
- come home regularly with clothes or books destroyed
- come home starving (bully taking dinner money)
- become withdrawn, start stammering, lack confidence
- become distressed and anxious, stop eating
- attempt or threaten suicide
- cry themselves to sleep, have nightmares
- have their possessions go missing
- ask for money or start stealing (to pay the bully)
- continually 'lose' their pocket money
- refuse to talk about what's wrong
- have unexplained bruises, cuts, scratches
- begin to bully other children, siblings
- become aggressive and unreasonable
- give improbable excuses for any of the above
Source: http://www.kidscape.org.uk
More Than Sad: A Teen Depression Film 
This film, produced by Break
Thru Films for AFSP, features four character vignettes, each
designed to present to teens a recognizable picture of depression.
This film is being distributed to high schools throughout the
nation. To view, click on the image above.
2007 Local COMMUNITY OUT OF THE
DARKNESS Walk
Thank you to
all who contributed to the success of the walk which took place
in:
Fell Park in Battle
Creek, Michigan on Oct. 13th, 2007
For anyone wishing to contribute, please click on the link
below.
You will be helping to support the
following:
- Research to improve the understanding of
biological, genetic and psychosocial factors that contribute to
suicide.
- Suicide prevention on college campuses
through the dissemination of an educational film, The Truth
about Suicide: Real Stories of Depression in College.
- National Survivors of Suicide Day
conferences, which inform, assist and empower families and friends
bereaved by suicide.
- Development of national centers that will
evaluate the effectiveness of suicide prevention
treatments.
- Creation of new survivor support groups and
strengthening of existing groups through training.
- Local suicide prevention
programs.
Thank you for your support
of this great cause.
The Anti-Bullying Effort
in Michigan
PLEASE CLICK ON
THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO SEE THE CONTENT OF EACH
BILL
SB
0107
HB
4162
CURRENT STATUS as
of
Wednesday, March 28th 2007
House OKs Anti-Bullying
Measure
With a 59-50 vote, the House supported Matt's
Safe School Law, which would require Michigan's public schools to
adopt anti-bullying policies.
Senate version remains in
Committee
Depression/Suicide
Awareness Legislation has now been passed
in Michigan!!!
A BIG
THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP IN SUPPORTING HB 4375, WHICH WAS
UNANIMOUSLY PASSED BY BOTH THE HOUSE & THE SENATE AND SIGNED BY
MICHIGAN GOVERNOR GRANHOLM JULY 20TH, 2006!!!
HB
4375
On another note,
I'd like to share some books which I found to be particularly
helpful. If you click on the book, you will be taken to the web
sites where you may read more about the books and their
authors:
Raymond
Moody, M.D.; Melvin Morse, M.D.; Dannion Brinkley; Dianne
Arcangel, M.S.; Elisabeth Kubler-Ross,
M.D.; George
Anderson; Bishop James Pike (Bishop Pike's son James took
his own life on 2/4/66. This book is an
absolute must read for those finding themselves in similar
circumstances.); Dean Radin,
Ph.D., Evan Harris Walker, Ph.D.; Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. & Linda
Russek, Ph.D.
Forever Family
Foundation - A foundation formed
to further the understanding of
Afterlife Science through research and education while providing
support and healing for people in grief.
What The
Bleep!? -
What the Bleep Do We Really Know?
An eye opening video that I would suggest to everyone in the entire
world.
The Rhine Research Center
Society for Scientific
Exploration - An Institute
for the Study of
Consciousness.
American Society for Psychical
Research - Supporting
the Scientific investigation of extraordinary or as yet unexplained
phenomena that have been called psychic or
paranormal.
Parapsychological
Association - The
international professional organization of scientists and scholars
engaged in the study of 'psi'’ (or 'psychic') experiences, such as
telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and
precognition.
The International Association for
Near-Death Studies - The
first organization in the world devoted exclusively to the study of
Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and Near-Death-Like
experiences.
The Institute for Noetic
Sciences - A nonprofit
membership organization located in Northern California that conducts
and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of
consciousness - including perceptions, beliefs, attention,
intention, and intuition. The institute explores phenomena that do
not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while
maintaining a commitment to scientific
rigor.
The Power of
Prayer - Larry & Barbara
Dossey are working to reshape the very ground of medicine &
healthcare. | 
