A city park will become a sanctuary for family and friends who have lost loved ones to suicide.
Seven basalt columns will be erected at the new Survivors of Suicide Memory Garden at Cofrin Nature Park on Saturday from 8 a.m.-noon.
Six of the pillars will stand about 6 feet tall and represent people who are directly affected by a suicide, said Marshall Knudson, the director of the Alachua County Crisis Center. The columns will encircle a shorter, broken pillar, which represents the person lost to suicide, he said.
“For every suicide, there are at least six people who are significantly impacted by the death of a loved one,” Knudson said.
Knudson said the design arranges the pillars symbolically in different groups. A cluster of three pillars represents a family unit, a pair represents a couple and the last one represents an individual person leaning toward the seventh broken pillar.
Ashley Monaco, a 20-year-old UF biology sophomore whose father committed suicide last year, said maybe the monument can help bring healing to others.
“It is heartening to hear about this monument because it is somewhere I can go to try and escape and heal,” Monaco said. “It’s comforting to know that I am not alone.”
