It’s 10 a.m., and the remnants of summer mingle with the wisps of fall. Clad in a magenta T-shirt, beaded heart earrings and Skechers sandals, Candi Morris waits at the door of Elder Options of Alachua County in southwest Gainesville. It’s her first cold call of the day.
With a smile, “Hope” written across the front of her T-shirt, and a sponsorship packet in hand, Morris strides into the nonprofit resource center, piercing the silent, artificially-cooled space with her warm greeting.
“Hi, my name is Candi Morris, and I'm with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,” she says to the receptionist. “We are having a walk in November, and I wanted to drop off this packet for you.”
The receptionist’s blank nodding is relieved by a staff member passing by, who Morris also greets. As she continues to explain amid the receptionist’s hesitant replies, Morris’ bubbly tone and smile float into the surrounding corridors.
“I just thought you guys would be a great resource,” she says. “I lost my dad to suicide when he was 82. For seniors, it’s a high rate of suicide.”
As if a disconnected microphone got plugged into its outlet, the receptionist’s eye contact strengthens, and within a few seconds, she says she’ll be sure to pass the information along. Several goodbyes later, Morris is stopped by another voice.
“Can I ask you a question?” A different staffer’s curiosity has been piqued; another potential sponsor has been found. The quiet morning is just getting acquainted with Candi Morris.
As the North Florida Board Chair for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Morris has worked for months to prepare for the foundation’s Gainesville Out of the Darkness community walk at Westside Park, scheduled for Nov. 2.
The walk, which is held in hundreds of communities across the country, is meant to give people the courage to open up about their connections to suicide. It welcomes anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide or community members who want to support each other in memory of lives lost to suicide. For Morris, this walk is one key component of breaking the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health.
AFSP uses the donations raised from the walk to fund research for suicide prevention, create and distribute education programs, advocate for public policy and support survivors of suicide loss.
Morris, who retired from her full-time job with the state’s Department of Health in May, has worked as a volunteer for AFSP since 2019. She now chairs the foundation’s North Florida Board of Directors, and plans to dedicate more time to volunteering.
“Now I can give 100% of my attention to this,” she said. “I can see a difference in what we're doing now — the responses we're getting with the walk, because I am out there pounding the ground, passing out flyers, trying to get sponsors, trying to get donations for the auction.”
Morris’ father was 82 when he died by suicide. His advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and loss of mobility factored into his struggle and led Morris to choose Elder Options as her first stop of the day.
She also finds herself talking to her late father.
“Dad, there was a reason why this happened,” she says to him. “It’s opened me up to find my passion and to be your voice because you were struggling, and we did not know it.”
Nine years after her father’s passing, Morris said she advocates to any group she can about the warning signs of suicide across age demographics.
Recently, Morris presented to a small women’s group at Faith Bible Church, a woman approached her to let her know how informative her story was. She told Morris that she’d heard similar comments among the elderly in her community.
“Listen to what people say when they’re possibly struggling,” Morris advised the woman.
“Open those ears up because I didn’t. Nobody told me, and if I can share that with just one person, then I’ve made a difference.”
In September, Morris sat in on a Zoom symposium hosted by the Alachua County Crisis Center to address mental wellness and health needs. Morris was placed in a breakout room to discuss elder suicide.
The highest rates of suicide, she learned, are among people 85 or older, accounting for 23% of all suicides in 2022, according to the CDC. People ages 75 to 84 followed closely behind at 20.3%.
Morris said she thinks suicide can be shrugged off when it happens to the elderly, and some may automatically blame the old age.
“No, they’re tired,” she said. “They’re in pain.”
Sitting in her parked car as she reflects, she fiddles with her seatbelt and avoids her usual eye contact.
“A lot of times, they’re at home by themselves,” she says. “You can’t get out, you can’t drive; I mean, that’s what happened to my dad. It’s like their life has been taken away from them.”
Pop hits play on the radio on the ride to her next stop. With both hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road, she remembers the morning of her father’s funeral in 2015. She reaches to turn down Post Malone.
“I still remember the call,” she says. “ I still remember my reactions. It really does feel like it was just yesterday.”
Growing up as the youngest of five children in St. Augustine, Morris was raised strictly Catholic for as long as she lived under her father’s roof. Nevertheless, her brother went on to become a Baptist minister. Her father’s wishes included a full Catholic Mass and burial in a Catholic cemetery.
Still mourning the loss of their father, Morris and her brother disagreed on the funeral, as suicide is considered a sin in Catholicism, she said. Despite a unanimous vote for a closed-casket funeral among her and her siblings, she faced an open casket when the day came.
“I struggled with that, and I don't have any hard feelings toward my brother,” she said. Her voice deepens slightly, and her pace slows.
“It’s just that he was looking at it one way, but I felt we should have looked at it another way and just honored our father’s wishes,” she says. “He was very passionate about his faith, and we should have kept that.”
Within a few minutes, she parks in front of Sisset’s Home and Patio store. Ready for another cold call, her spirits lift, and her smile reappears.
The whimsical store is decked in autumn decor and beach-themed everything. With a sponsorship packet in hand, she walks to the checkout counter. After her pitch, Morris and the co-owner are cracking jokes.
Contrary to her cold-calling trips, Morris doesn’t build this community on her own.
Wendy Thompson, the area director for the North Florida and Panhandle chapters of AFSP, has worked alongside Morris for over a year. Their paths first crossed at one of AFSP’s national conferences several years back. Seated randomly next to Morris, Thompson said they hit it off immediately.
Both women share the grief of their fathers’ suicides, which bonded them, Thompson said. Having lost her father earlier in life, Thompson began volunteering with AFSP in 2008 and became a staff member in 2016. The two women work very closely together these days.
“She [Morris] has taken her experience and is trying to find some good in it by helping others,” Thompson said. “She uses her voice to share her story, raise awareness and help other people.”
While AFSP holds community walks in cities like Gainesville and Jacksonville, it also holds walks on college campuses. It has been years since the last campus walk at UF, but despite everything on Morris’ plate, her passion led her to make it happen last year, Thompson said.
“I think she lives our mission in everything she does,” Thompson said. “ Ultimately, I think helping other people is very healing, and I think Candi probably shares that as well.”
As October nears its end, Morris is in crunch time for the Gainesville walk. Her time is spent taping resource cards to rubber duckies, finalizing swag bags and confirming customized T-shirt orders for top donors.
In 2022, the walk raised over $18,000 for suicide prevention. This year, it has raised nearly $29,000 of its $40,000 goal. While almost 200 participants have signed up to attend, Morris still travels throughout the community to spread the word.
AFSP volunteers surround Morris as they paint Gainesville’s 34th Street wall to spread awareness about the walk. Photo courtesy of Candi Morris.
Pastel bracelets beaded with the words “see the good” stack on Morris’ wrist. They sit right above her hands, where it’s hard to notice that she’s missing her thumbs. Born with multiple birth defects, Morris recalled getting picked on during her childhood. But she remembers even more that her parents never treated her any differently.
“When my father passed away, yes, I mourned,” she said. “But at the same time, my father would never want me to mourn so much that it would affect my life. Watching him go through what he went through, granted, there were moments where the pain was so much, but he always kept going forward. That was always embedded in me.”
With a supportive home life, Morris said she’s always had a can-do spirit.
“My father has no voice anymore,” she said. “I am his voice now, and I am doing this for him.”
She lets her smile fade for a few moments to allow her tears to flow and her eyes to shine.
“Now that I’ve ruined my makeup, we’re ready to go,” she says.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide’s website for a list of additional resources.
Contact Noor Sukkar at nsukkar@alligator.org. Follow her on X @noorsukkarr.
Noor Sukkar is a third-year journalism major with a minor in Arabic. She is the Avenue's Fall 2024 General Assignment reporter. When she's not writing, she's most likely talking to her cat or overwatering her plants.
