Mum’s struggle to cope after son’s death

Murray Evans was always the sort of boy make the most of things. Mum Suzi recalls a time when he lost a rugby game in high school.
“I said to him, ‘That’s a shame,’ and he said, ‘It’s OK Mum, I had fun!’ He was that type.”
Suzi called her son ‘Muzz’ from a young age.
“Oh he was gorgeous,” Suzi, who now lives in South Australia, tells 9honey.
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“He was always quite sensitive, but had a really good sense of humour. He was lots of fun, you know?”
Muzz loved music and during his primary school years was a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan.
“He struggled a bit with schoolwork, which I think a lot of young boys do, because I think they’d rather be outside doing things. But he was very sporty.”
Muzz had mild dyslexia, which made school more difficult, and Suzi recalls feeling concerned about him when she divorced his father.
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“I actually consulted the school counselor and made sure he had an eye on that,” she says.
Muzz’s battle with alcohol began when he was 14.
At the time, he was living with his dad in Melbourne. Muzz sent his uncle a concerning text message.
“He’d sent my younger brother a text in the middle of the night, which basically was like ‘the next lifetime’-type thing,” Suzi recalls.
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“My brother rang me and said, ‘You need to find him now.’ So I did. I went to Melbourne and got him and brought him back here.
“He was dabbling in drugs at that stage so I got him out and he did rehab here. That was a real spiral. 
“He got through all that. He gave up drinking. He used to run AA meetings on the Gold Coast.”
Muzz was “feeling good” and was working for a disability organisation as a carer.
“He had this goal to run a farm in the Hinterland on the Gold Coast so families could take their disabled kids camping and things like that.”
At the time of his death, Muzz was going through a painful divorce.
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Suzi spoke with her son the night before he died, and then “never heard from him again.”
“The next day I tried to ring him, and his phone was off. His phone is never off. He may not answer but his phone was never off,” she recalls.
“I thought, ‘Oh, there’s something wrong.’ I thought, ‘No, he’s 29.'”
She tried to hold onto the belief Muzz was OK.
“It was really bizarre, I’ll still never forget it. I was standing in the kitchen and I felt it in my heart. I felt this tug and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s it. That’s me letting go.’
“I actually told my husband Nick about it. I thought no one would believe me and we think that that may have been the time that he did it.”
She later confirmed that was the time her son Muzz, died by suicide. It was a Saturday, and the police turned up to her house on Monday to tell her the horrific news.
She doesn’t think there was anything else she could have done to support him, but she tried and tried to help him through difficult times.
“He knew he was loved, he knew he could come home, he knew he could go to my younger brother and his family.
“I just think he didn’t want to do it anymore … I think it just gets too much.”
It has been six years since the death of her son. Suzi is now a Mental Health First Aid Trainer and the founder of ‘Workbench for the Mind,’ an accredited program with Suicide Prevention Australia.
She’s also the author of Grief, a speaker, and a certified facilitator.
“Probably about two or three years ago a friend suggested I do my diploma in positive psychology and wellbeing to help me with my grief, so I did that online and it just really resonated with me.”
Suzi began to understand what happens to the brain when we are under stress.
“Muzz was a carpenter. I just thought, ‘This is perfect.’ It’s like you get it all out of your head, you lay it on the table … we can easily access the tools we need.”
”I thought I was really going crazy,” Suzi says of the grief that motivated her work in the mental health space.
She says while her work “doesn’t take the pain away”, it helps her be “a little bit more positive” and “a bit kinder to ourselves.”
If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Men’s Helpline on 1300 78 99 78. In the event of an emergency contact Triple Zero (000).
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