Today we’d like to introduce you to Ray Stenglein
Ray, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
How I got started on this journey, I am a middle class construction worker, who does Historic stone restoration work in our state, love my job and travel away from home long distances and for days. In 2012 our oldest daughter attempted suicide for the first time of 5 Attempts. She also ennded up in a treatment facility for an eating disorder. This began my journey into mental health and mental illness and the extreme lack of resources available for families. This also was the begining of the internet and cell phone explosion into our world. 12-12-2016 our youngest daughter completed suicide at the age of 16. This was the worst day of my life and the begining of my new life, a life a pain, grief, internenal struggles and an awakening of my soul. My journey into where I am today has many pages to it including a loss of a mentor and great friend in 2022 to suicide as well. In the winter of 2017 shortly after the loss of my daughter Annika to suicide, the fog one is in has you asking many questions, the main one is “why”, shortly after followed by “What did I miss” …”did I do enough” then the personal blame. This roller coaster of feelings are what dominates everyday life, and still today is the haunting questions I have to deal with. My therapist coined a great statement, I will never be healed, but I will always be healing. I hated that staement at first but truly believe it today. As a parent who looses a child in my case to suicide which is a very tradjic loss, as with all sudden losses, is seen as the worse loss of all. There is no term for a parent who losses a child, All parents believe we will out live our children. The next thing that enters my head is my purpose, now that my world has been shattered what is the purpose of going on, living? I hear it from people well she is in a better place… really??? if so well this place to me sucks, so I think I would rather be in that better place. The only thing I could think of 4 weeks after the loss was to tell my our story, tell it to everyone that would listen. (I am not a out going person by any means, a true intervert. I do not speak in public, nor do I do anything to raise awareness of my presence in a room) But we did, we told our story to the newspaper, now our local newspaper was already alerted to our family and the struggles of community issues. Our oldest daughter one day bought lunch for a kid at school who had his tray taken away from him due to lack of money in his lunch account. This hit the paper and many articles were written, this made it all the way up to the head of education in Minnesota, since then Minnesota has made it a policy of no kid will go hungry while in school. So that reporter reached out to us as this topic of suicide was a topic near and dear to her own life. Our motivation behind this in the begining was 2 fold, anger at society and also wanting to get the word out to parents and teachers about the struggles and the lack of help for us parents who are having children dealing with mental health. After this article was published, I was then asked to speak at a community event in our area, again for the first time since I was forced in high school over 32 years ago to speak in front of my classmate peers, I spent hours preparing what I wanted to say, to make sure I covered all the topics. Shortly into the talk I left my notes and continued the story from my heart, the one thing I have learned over the next 8 years my story will be told from my heart and in a way that is meant for the audience in front of me. By March of 2017 3 months after the loss of Annika, I was approached by a couple of people, one who lost her child to suicide and one who lost her brother, they wanted to let me know of a walk, the out of the darkness walk that is put on with the American Foundation of Suicide prevention. Willmar has had 6 of these to date and well they group has burnt out and will not be doing it this year unless I had an interest in taking it over. The shock at first was the fact that I had never even heard of this walk before, and the walk was literally held right across the street from my office, again I never had heard of this before. Bingo, again we are afraid to talk about suicide, mental health, we all live in ignorance of this topic. So of course I ask whats involved in a walk, as I have never been to one and certainly never ran one as the chair. I new at that moment I could not let this walk fade away, especially since it has so much meaning to me now. So I said yes and took on the roll of Willmars 7th OOTD walk and I just completed (my 8th walk) Willmars 14th this year 2024. The walks are held in the fall of every year around our country. In and around Jan of 2108 I was asked to join Minnesotas chapter of the American Suicide prevention, and become a board member which i did and still am. In Feb the same group that approache dme about the walk, now asked me if I wanted to take over their non-profit WINGS OF HOPE. This non profit started 6 years early from a rash of teen suicides in New London Minnesota of 6 teens that died by suicide. The group started out strong in trying to spread the message, but have since fallen apart and headed in different directions. So yes I took on another task, being the president of Wings of Hope. By doing this I felt I could continue spreading the message to teens and parents and hopefully make sure no other parent has to join me , the group of loss survivors. Unfortunitly their is such a group, in our area its called Heartbeat, this group is there for people who have lossed someone to suicide. This group as well as my therapist (another part of my long story) were a crucial part of my healing journey. The facilitator of this group after 10 years, decided to step down, so this group was in need of a new facilitator, and yes I step up into that roll as well. Along my journey of bringing awareness to this message, I would raise donations so I could bring educational programs to our community, as rural Minnesota does not have the resources as the metro area does for these services. (Side note even the metro areas are struggling with the resources to help) I had a great instructor come and teach a Mental Health first aid class to our area. Chris Shaw was the instructor and we hit it off from day one. Chris had a story, one that made him a great presenter, and boy can he present his message. I booked many classes with him and we became each others support person when we needed it as well as best friends. I hit December of year 5 in my grief journey and have become very frustrated in the progress, it seemed like the mountain was to high to climb, too many road blocks in getting the message out, and yet we were filling up every class we put on. So I had an idea, I found this beautiful soul Emma Benoit, who attempted suicide the same year as my daughter and at the same age, she goes around the country telling her story “My Ascension” . I called Chris and said, I am burning out, I think its time for one last explosion, I want to make one last big difference, and I want to bring Emma and her program to Minnesota, and lets do it in a week and hit as many schools that would let us bring it to their kids. Was I crazy in this Idea, no Chris said lets do it. So we did, it was not cheap but we wanted to do this, we brought her in, Chris was the moderator and I was on the panel with Emma and we went to 5 schools and had 3 community events in the evening in one week, That was it my big splash and it felt great. 3 weeks after this event we were asked to do it again in the fall, with another school then another so we had 2 seperate weeks planned to do this program, wow this seemed so great. 2 months later my friend, my mentor ….Chris lost his battle with mental illness and took his life June 21, 2022. This was a huge blow to me, another new set of emotions… anger at him, and what did I miss surfaced again. Now I am left with the task of faciliatating the next 2 weeks in the fall of the My Ascension tour Minnesota as the moderator as well. Part of my healing journy as well was with Emma, I could ask her questions about what lead up to her day, and she could learn from me what her parents would have lived with if she had completed, it was as if my daughter was in her in a way on this journey. To date we have been in 30 schools and had over 18 community events of the documentary. As I said in the beginning I am a construction worker, men in general do not share their feelings, or talk about personal issues. In 2022 I was asked to be in on the ground floor of a new coalition, this coalition would become the State of Minnesota Suicide prevention and mental health awareness in the construction industry. Wow another ignorance of mine and of many. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the construction industry, the industry I am apart of for over 40 years. This was a natural fit for me, my focus on teens and parents which is met with many road blocks in schools as they do not want to talk about it, has now found another path to travel, my own industry. I have become a trainer as well in several different gatekeeper programs, and I go out to construction companies across our state and share my story and trainings to a large group of my peers, I was even asked to do the same thing in New Mexico AGC summit last September.
Where I am today? I am still on my grief journey, there have been many new friends made on this journey, friends I wish I have never had to meet, but we are forged together from the great losses we had. There have been so many old friend that are no longer there, too many new friends, but truly true friends since. What I do has no score card, not way to know if I am making a difference. I know that I am in my heart, the struggle with mental illness is personal and its yours, I just want to make it a normal conversation in everbodys daily life. We can all save someone’s life if we can just listen, learn to listen, be a friend and not judge. We as a society have lost the compassion of being there for anyone who is in deep personal need. All they want is someone to talk to, to listen…. Along my grief journey I have met many special people, and one really helped me recently find a new level in myself. As a suicide loss survivor, a parent of a teen, we start out in this deep fog, time stood still for me, and since has changed me forever. I was wearing Annikas lossing her life at the age of 16 as sorta a badge.. a way of shock and awe in my story. This was my way of trying to wake people up from the ignorance of what is happening under their noses. We as parents struggle day to day when the question of “do you have any kids” how do you answer that question… you really think hard, does this person deserve to hear the whole story… are they ready to hear it, or is this another way to loose a conversation or a friendship as they are not ready to have this conversation. My awakening has changed my view in so many ways, for the first time last July, I woke up one morning after a seminar I attended, and I said Annika will be 24 in October. Yes her earthly body vessel died in 2016 at the age of 16, but her soul/ her spirit lives and grows in me as I / we get this message out to those who need it. Whatever your beliefs are in the after life, at her funeral and on my personal tattoo I said “till we meet again”
I went to a catholic seminary for 4 years in High School, I do not pracice that faith anymore in the society sense, I feel we are all connected in some way, we are on a journey through life on this planet for a short time and our story is much greater then we know. Annika had her stroy it was told in a short time, now with me we are telling it in a different light, and when i leave this earthly body and see her again, we both will have grown, and continue on with the next leg of whatever is out there.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Challenges have been many. The belief in may if you talk about suicide you will promote or glorify it. School adminstrators do not want to talk about it or let the topic into their schools. Society its self have been a large struggle, our fear of death, our fear of talking about our feelings. Men, we want to be seen as strong, and talking about feelings makes us look week.
Telling my story is also a struggle, I talk about it as pealing off the band aid from a wound before it is healed. Everytime I tell my story, the wound opens up and starts to bleed inside. Sometimes I feel I would be better off saying nothing. The struggles of a construction worker as well added challenges, being on the road working, there is a lot of time away from the family. I feel regret from missing things, the added stressor of trying to juggle work and family life, and after her death, the self medicating with alcohol to hide the pain, this was made easier by being alone in hotels.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My career is a project manager, estimator, superintendant of a construction company. Environmental Associates Inc. We work on historical roadside structures that were built in the 1930’s and older by the CCC and WPA programs.
I am most proud of in this work is the ability to bring myself and my team into a project, and we do the work because we care. We treat everything we do as if it was ours. We treat every owner and sub contractor as if they are a great friend or family member.
My “hobby” or new path is the work of Wings of Hope. Making difference in this world, helping bring awareness and hope to all. I find it hard to be proud of myself, as I don’t believe this to be worn as a honor, but more my purpose. Many tell me to be proud, I would rather have my Annika alive, then to have taken this journey.
I really don’t know how to answer whats sets me apart from others, I would assume anyone tasked with the road I have traveled would have done the same. I beilieve in honesty and truth, compassion and sympathy, this should be everyones beliefs.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Donations to our non profit is one way, or come walk beside me with the journey and bring programs and the message to those who need it and want it. I am always looking for people to help, it is a lonely journey doing this alone. There are so many different non profits started by families that want to do soething to stop the pain they are going through, and yet we don’t work together, we are starting to combine our efforts and sharing in our successes, but we have a long way to go.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://yourwingsofhope.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064820403056
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-stenglein-4a4a8321/
- Other: https://www.eaimn.com/historic-restoration/
