Today is Grant’s birthday.  This morning, I ran across something I wrote to the Foundation’s newly formed “Advisory Board” in January 2006, just weeks after Grant’s death. I thought I’d share an excerpt with you:

Why am I here?

It’s an old question, isn’t it? But here we are, a group of 10 asking ourselves, and needing to come up with a real answer: Why are we here?

I can tell you mine. I actually did not know until a total stranger asked the question of me yesterday. The answer flew out of my heart and mind and mouth.

I am here because if I could save just one young person’s life, I would do anything to accomplish that. Anything.

If through this work, we could get one teenager or young adult to step back from the ledge, to stay and fight, to make it through the storm…we would have accomplished the greatest thing on this earth. We would have saved a life.

Today I visited Grant’s grave. I walked in a circle to each of the graves closest to his. There are 12, counting his, and six of them were young people between the ages of 15 and 24. All suicides? Most likely not. Some suicides? Probably.   

I don’t know where the answers are. But I know that in the life of every person who has thought about suicide—or has attempted it and is still here—there must have been something that helped keep them here among us.

We need to find those answers. We need to help. Because although Grant was an artist and a musician, he was first a young man with a heart for helping people. He was a giver.

Why are we here?

By Vanita Halliburton
Co-founder and Executive Chairman
Grant Halliburton Foundation