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Howdy, pals! Happy September, a month I enjoy for a couple reasons. I feel like it signals the waning days of stupid hot summer, a season that turns me into a sweaty human hotdog. But more importantly, and more seriously, September is Suicide Prevention Awareness month, a time to raise awareness, promote hope, and normalize help-seeking. Suicide affects millions of people every year, and too many struggle in silence.September is a month to learn more about the topic—things like recognizing warning signs, how to have open conversations about it, and where to find proven treatment and resources.

This month, and today's episode, are especially significant to me, as a survivor of decades-long suicidal ideation myself, and as a friend to many who've died by suicide. The story you're about to hear, which originally aired in 2021, is one of the most meaningful stories I've ever reported. It's about [00:01:00] a family I have long-loved from my hometown, the dark times they endured after a tragic loss, and how they found a way back to light and joy. It's a difficult story to share. It might even be a diffiuclt one to listen to, but I encourage you to stick with it, becuase it's ultimately a beautiful story about grief and togetherness, and the enduring bonds that can give us a new, deep sense of purpose. A purpose fueled by love, which is afterall not just a feeling but a constant action.

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Lawlor: I was at FFC, it was, um, this, this gym, and this trainer comes up to me, she's like, oh, you doing planks? I was like, yeah, you, you're welcome to join. And she asked me something, which just threw me for, uh, a curve ball. How many siblings do you have? And for all of my life up until that moment, that [00:02:00] was such an easy, uh, question to answer.

It's, I have three siblings, you know, two older, one younger. But I thought about it and. Out of shame or something. I was like, I, I have two siblings just 'cause I, I didn't wanna bring up the one who we had just buried.

Paddy: That's Lawlor Coe. He lives near Bozeman, Montana now. But we grew up just a few blocks away from one another in River Forest, Illinois.

A suburb about eight miles west of Chicago. Our families have been friends for decades, and even though Lawlor and his siblings were a handful of years younger than me and my brothers and sister, we paled around quite a bit growing up and our early lives share a ton of similarities. Lots of team sports and skinned, knees from climbing trees, cannonball contests at the pool.

Lots of time spent acting up and acting out with your family.

Lawlor : I grew up across the street from the Forest Preserve, uh, Thatcher Woods. Oh, yeah. A lot of my time with my friends growing up was. Running around the [00:03:00] woods, doing things that kids do, pretending that a stick is a rifle and you're playing war or you're playing, uh, hide and seek or building tree forts.

¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ of that, I played sports growing up. I played lacrosse. I believe you were my older brother's coach at one point in high school.

Paddy: I was. Yeah, yeah,

Lawlor : yeah. ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ of that swam a little bit at the, uh, at the tennis club where you were also our lifeguard. Right. So a lot of connections here. Yeah.

Paddy: With families in our town, it, it, it's hard to maybe see the individual rather than like the entire family unit.

You know, I still probably think of like the Coes as like, well, it's the Coe kids to me, you guys all, were always kind of like rolling around in a. Uh, you know, Charlie Brown, dust Storm all together,

Lawlor : you know? Yeah.

Paddy: Did you guys all get along?

Lawlor : Hunter and I were probably the closest. If there were chores around the house, usually Hunter and I were the ones that had to do the chores.

Uh, Regan would be reading a book somewhere and Jordan would be doing [00:04:00] whatever you. The youngest child does.

Paddy: I remember doing a ton of chores. Kitty never doing any. Sean was the golden boy, and, and Brendan had his nose in a book at all times, you know, and yeah, I kind of thought of myself as like the permanent day laborer.

Lawlor : That's exactly where, and I'm, I'm third in line as well, so I, yeah, that's, that's what I always thought. But Hunter and I were. Uh, yeah, we were always the, the ones that got assigned whatever task of the day was,

Paddy: did you look up to him?

Lawlor : Oh, absolutely. He was extremely outgoing. He always had the biggest friend group, always hanging out with the popular crowd, uh, went to the same high school and then also went to the same prep school, and then went to the same college.

Uh, and actually had similar majors in college. So one of the reasons I followed him is 'cause I, I just learned a ton from him. Hunter was a, he was a unique guy.

Paddy: This is how I remember Hunter too, surrounded by friends, playing with a gaggle of younger kids at the neighborhood pool, teaching kids to swim, shoulders curled over his [00:05:00] body, bouncing with laughter, probably giggling because he just made a wise crack or gave one of his siblings a wet Willie or something.

He was incredibly likable and lovable. The kind of guy that lifts everyone up around him, if not a bit of a little whipper snapper too. A fact not lost on his parents, mark and Kristen Coe. I think Hunter and I were pretty similar as, as little kids, and we probably shared a lot of the same characteristics.

Yeah. Maybe employing like the Huckleberry Finn rules to life, you know, a little lovable mischief, uh, uh, more harshly. My, my siblings perhaps might have described me as a, you know, like a charming little asshole. Right. Hunter was, I mean, was, he was kind of a scam, don't you think?

Kristen: Oh, he was. He would say to me all the time, mom.

Don't worry about the shenanigans. And of course, I always had to worry about the shenanigans. He was the most appropriately [00:06:00] named child in the world because he was a hunter from the word go. So he fell outta bed at eight months and he never really stopped from that point on,

Mark: I don't know that he saw.

Lines, boundaries. Uh, you know, I mean, he just, it was all just cool. I was always impressed with, with how much, uh, loyalty hunter exhibited towards Waller. You know, woe b to the person who tried to muck with Waller CO in any way, shape, or, or form. Hunter was really the standup brother. And he was gonna be there for Waller.

Kristen: We have struggled mightily to make sure that we do not elevate Hunter to sainthood in his death because he, he had a complex life as many do, and we have bail bondsman in two Ohio counties. To attest to that,

Paddy: mark and Kristen and Lawlor all agree that Hunter was the life of the party, incredibly sensitive and [00:07:00] compassionate.

A hurricane at times, not one to give voice to his deepest emotions easily. He was a lot of things, sometimes contradictory things. A character perhaps perfectly exemplified During a trip, Lawlor and Hunter took with their mom to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2012. The boys were 19 and 21 years old, and their mom's sister had just died unexpectedly.

Kristen: I must have started to tear up and without saying a word, hunter came over to me and said. Do you want me to light a candle for jam? And he did. And, and he walked with me and took me over to where we could light a candle. And the funny part of the story is that after he lit the candle for me, he then stole the candle cover.

So I found the candle cover and it was like, oh my God, I have it hanging in my office. Because that, that is the full complexity of hunter Coe.

Paddy: In [00:08:00] 2015, Lawlor was going into his senior year at Miami of Ohio, and Hunter who'd graduated two years before was living at home with his parents and youngest brother Jordan, who was a senior at a prep school in Maine.

But back home for the summer, hunter had a lot going on. He was engaged to be married and working a big job with an accounting firm in downtown Chicago, which meant that he and Lawlor were as distant from each other in many ways than they'd ever been. But their bond remained strong. They talked on the phone a lot and saw one another whenever Lala returned home for a visit and yet Hunter was going through things.

He wasn't sharing as outgoing as he was. He did not like to talk about his feelings. The cos like most families had a history of mental health struggles, and Mark and Kristen had been honest and direct about the topic with their kids Still. No one knew that Hunter had been dealing with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and was self-medicating even longer.

Just [00:09:00] figured that his brother was maybe maxed out at work and that was it.

Lawlor : His higher moments were higher, but his lower moments were also lower. So I think he had a shorter fuse. I just kind of that up to like, he stressed. Uh, it's it's tax season. It's, it is what it is. He was working a ton. I think he had not stayed on top of whatever physical activity he was doing, so maybe had let himself go a little bit, thinking a little bit too much about work.

And on the weekends, uh, if he was stressed out, he might take a Valium or something. Hunter was, if I'm being honest, the, the last person, I, I would assume, uh, someone to, to go down the road and, and, uh. Take their own life. But, um, yeah, it was, it was never something that I ever would've guessed would've ever happened with Hunter, because he just, he wasn't that guy.

Paddy: Do you [00:10:00] remember the last time you saw him?

Lawlor : I do. And actually was not the best experience. So I had an internship out in Salt Lake City, and I, I had this shirt, which he really liked. The night before I was leaving for Utah, I like went into his room. I was like, Hey. We had just had a bit of a fight at dinner, but I was like, all right, here's your shirt.

You know, like, f you, I'll, I'll see you when I see you. Um, 'cause I was a little ticked off to him and he was a little ticked off to me. And, uh, yeah, that was, that was the last moment. And then I went, drove out to Utah and I was out there for a week. And then it was that next weekend, I got the call from my parents of, of what happened.

Kristen: Hunter was home, he went downtown to, uh. I think watch Game of Thrones with a friend from college and came back, uh, sort of later and we talked a bit, had just [00:11:00] a, would say a perfectly regular conversation about whatever. And, uh, he went in to bed

Paddy: that evening. Hunter Code died by suicide. Jordan got a phone call asking him to go check on Hunter.

After he did, he went to their mom.

Kristen: I went in to check on Hunter and he, um, looked to be sleeping and very much at peace.

Mark: I was up in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. We had been working on refinishing. A sailboat that was up there. And actually Hunter had been up helping me with it three weeks before, and he and I had a actually kind of a nice weekend, three week, three weekends before and before I left to go up to Sturgeon Bay. I actually, he was, he was in the house, [00:12:00] gave me a hug as I was leaving.

He seemed to be happy and, and and excited. And then I got in the car and drove up to Door County and had been working on the boat. For a couple of days and, uh, was actually asleep when Kristen called and it was absolutely disorienting. I, I think I must have asked you three or four times to re-explain that Hunter had had died by suicide.

It took me a while to both wake up and, and get context for that, but you were so perfectly calm, Kristen. And, and so together. Um. During that, during that whole time, but it was then a, a fog of driving down from DOR County to Chicago.

Paddy: When Mark got home at about six in the morning, Kristen was up with Jordan and a friend of his,

Kristen: [00:13:00] so it was Jordan, his good buddy, me and the two dogs on a, on an an L-shaped couch, just because we wanted to just be together.

And then, uh, mark came home and, and so started, uh, the rollercoaster of notifying people. The first thing we did was call the children because we, we didn't want anything to somehow be posted to social media, like who thinks about what, you know, who should have to think about that. But, um. And that was incredibly difficult.

Paddy: Do you remember, um, the phone call that you got?

Lawlor : Yeah, and I, I think I more remember it as how I felt versus what actually, you know, the conversation between my parents. [00:14:00] Um, but it kind of just felt like white noise right after they said what happened. I was in shock, obviously. Um, I don't know if I was trying to process things or just, I was kinda replaying what they said in my head of hunter's.

I don't know if they said hunter's dead or took his life, or, I don't remember what the exact words are, but it was, it just, you know, when your ears have that ringing motion, um, uh, it was just white noise.

Paddy: Lawlor traveled all day in a series of connecting flights that got him home exhausted By that evening, the wake and the funeral were just days later. Events that are blurry memories. But there is one distinct moment that stands out.

Lawlor : You know, I'm not a a very emotional person, but I think we had just gotten back from the funeral or the wake.

And I was upstairs and [00:15:00] going through my drawers and I found the shirt, and this is the one that I threw at him, uh, the last time I saw him. And for whatever reason, nothing else to that point had really set me off. But yeah, I just, I just broke down, um, when I saw that, 'cause it had kind of bringing everything back for me.

I have a notebook, which I occasionally write to Hunter and have done that over the last six years. I, I looked at the first one that I wrote, which was about a week after the funeral, and I had mentioned how I was angry. I was sad. I was regretful because of all the things that he missed out on himself and all the things that he would miss out on, on Jordan's future, on Regan's future, on my parents' future and, and on mine because, you know, you walk with this person hand in hand for the first 21, 22 years of your life, uh, you expect them to be there for the latter half and, uh.[00:16:00]

I think it was a shock just trying to process that, but that was the end of his story. Well, what I thought at the ti at the time would be the end of his story.

Paddy: We'll be right back after a short break,

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after Hunter's death by suicide in June of 2015. Lawlor says the family was adrift. Everyone was fighting to find a foothold on life. Then the next year, mark and Kristen started a foundation in Remembrance of Hunter. It's named Be The Boat, a reference to a poem attributed to St. John of the Cross that was read at Hunter's Funeral.

Lawlor : The idea is that you try to be the boat that Hunter was for so many of his friends and family, caring people when they need to be carried.

Paddy: But Lawlor, who had been so close with his big brother, really needed to be carried now, and Hunter wasn't there. [00:17:00] Immediately after Hunter's death, Lawlor stayed home in Chicago with his family for a month, then returned to Utah to finish his internship, and was back at college at Miami of Ohio in August.

He says he was in a haze, in part because he was trying to escape his pain through heavy drinking, but Lawlor also began literally running away from his emotions.

Lawlor : I think I would get drunk and I would get so drunk that I kind of. Realize how drunk I am, uh, in this weird sense. I was like, wow, I have to, I have to get outta here.

Uh, I, uh, I have to. So I just started running and, uh, I remember there was one occasion, I think I ran about 10 miles at night and halfway through I kind of sobered up and I was like, all right, well, I'm five miles away. I guess I'll just turn around. Start running home again.

Paddy: Why do you think running? You know, I think, I think a lot of times when, when, um, when people black out or are really, you know, drunk, it's like, I'm gonna go eat like pizza [00:18:00] or Cheetos or something, or I'm gonna, you know, fall asleep on the couch.

Lawlor : I'm not gonna lie, there was some nights where the pizza was involved. I might have run over there to get the pizza, but, um, I was running, I, I, I really don't know. Um, I think it was, it was more just to, I. Uh, take myself out of whatever situation I was in almost because I knew that there was gonna be a wave of emotions that were, were coming because I had reached this level.

Paddy: You felt a little out of control or, or chaotic. And I was like, you know what? I, I can physically leave the way that I'm feeling.

Lawlor : Yeah. I tried to run away from whatever pain I was feeling, which. It was, you know, idiotic in hindsight because the emotions were still there. I was just physically not in the place I was before, but mentally I was in the exact same place

Paddy: at the urging of his parents.

Lawlor went to grief counseling, but only attended a few sessions. He says it never really clicked with him. Instead, he made it a [00:19:00] practice to open up to his family and his closest friends. Talk about his feelings and thoughts. His running also became a critical part of his self-healing. He had never really been much of a runner.

It was mostly just a way to get in shape for team sports. After graduating in June of 2016, Lawlor moved to Salt Lake City, Utah and began exploring the trails near his new home. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Wasatch Mountains made running a little bit more enjoyable than the pavement of Ohio and Chicago.

Over the next couple years, Lawlor pushed his body to new distances, and in 2018 started to eye ultra marathons. I was surprised to learn that this was, in part because of me. Lawlor and I had been sporadically in touch over the years, and he'd seen my social media posts about my very, very dumb decision to take up endurance running.

Lawlor : I remember specifically you were training for I think your 50 miler, and I was 100% following along on Instagram when you would record these [00:20:00] videos on your runs, saying about how much you hated yourself and who the hell convinced you to do this.

Paddy: Yeah. I was really upset at myself for convincing myself that it was a good idea to do something as stupid as that.

Lawlor : Yeah. Like, you know, I was like, all right, well, um, you know, this is something I can try and I roped a friend in and. We had signed up for this 50 miler in, uh, outside Grand Junction, Colorado.

Paddy: Around this time, Lawlor's cousin ran the New York City Marathon and did a fundraiser for an organization dedicated to suicide prevention, which gave him an idea.

And

Lawlor : I was like, all right, well, you know, maybe I can make this into my own kind of fundraiser run, and I'll start to GoFundMe. And, um, it, it'll be same idea. It, it worked out. It was, it was a very tough day. It was a long day. Oh, it was 11 and a half hours or so. 10,000 plus feet. It was fun, but that got me hooked.

Paddy: Lawlor raised $13,000 for Be the Boat. [00:21:00] The foundation's broad stroke mission is to improve the lives of children in and around Chicago who have been displaced due to poverty or an abusive at home situation. And it focuses on kids because, well, hunter loved to work with kids, especially teaching swim lessons and sailing.

Since its inception in 2016 on what would've been Hunter's 25th Birthday be, the Boat has paid for swim lessons and sailing lessons, and expanded to giving grants to programs like the Infant Welfare Society, Heba Children's Association, and Harmony Church, underwriting Behavioral Health Specialists and Tutors.

Supporting PET and art therapy and comprehensive Services for Children and families in crisis.

Kristen: I would say what be the boat has done is provide a nudge that could make more positive the trajectory that some of the children that are served through our grants to give them a different opportunity.

Because in the case of Hunter, we were. [00:22:00] Unaware of the challenges, and of course we would've done anything to help him. So he seemed to have it all. He was engaged. He had a job, he was a college grad, and yet he suffered. And so what we're hoping is that with a timely, discreet intervention that we can change and, uh, positively impact the trajectory of others who may not have the resources that we could have.

Offered to Hunter.

Mark: Nothing of course that we could ever do, would ever bring Hunter back and return the world to the way it was, but. I think that the, the Be the Boat initiative and the, as a, as a, as a, as a vehicle to at least try to find something good that can come from it. Because, you know, hunter had so many different talents and was, uh, gracious and loyal and loving and all those things.

And [00:23:00] to the extent that that can be channeled in, into something that, that can help honor that memory, that's, that seems like a great thing

Paddy: to date be. The boat has raised nearly $600,000 and Lawlor and his very busy, busy feet have raised almost 70,000 of that. His latest fundraising effort was a race called the Scout Mountain 100 this past June that has over 20,000 feet of vertical elevation gain Temperatures were in the nineties during his run of the 67 racers at the start.

34 dropped out by mile 50, but Lawlor was completely unphased. I'm just kidding. He was in terrible, terrible shape.

Lawlor : Mile 60 I had. Uh, symptoms of heat stroke. Uh, I had been throwing at my food for the last 15 miles. I kind of thought I was done and we're at the medical tent and there are a number of people that are in cots that are laying down.

The lead [00:24:00] woman had just come in ahead of this time and she was falling asleep. As people were talking to her, the guy next to me, they wouldn't, they were not gonna let back onto the course until he could urinate and he had probably, uh, drank. 12 liters of water by that point, and nothing was coming out, so he was having some kidney issues.

Um, but yeah, I, I stayed at the med tent for. Three or four hours, they got some liquids back in me, a lot of broth, uh, with a lot of salts. And I started being able to hold food down and slept on and off on this cot in a sleeping bag, uh, for three or four hours, and it totally brought me back to life.

Paddy: What'd it feel like to cross the finish line?

Lawlor : Oh, it was so fun. We were knocking off seven minute miles for the last two or three miles. Wow. Yeah. Finished strong and I was so thrilled.

Paddy: Did you think about Hunter? During the run,

Lawlor : uh, I did mainly during the night portion. Um, I was feeling pretty low at [00:25:00] that point.

I, I was not exactly holding my food down. I was pretty much running so low and when half the field drops out, you spend a lot of time by yourself. And, um, it really got me thinking again, of, of why I'm doing this and how lucky I am to be doing this. Um, but there are also, you know, moments of doubt. I think my thinking of Hunter, um, like that experience has changed over the years to where I'm not as down about it.

Uh, it's not grief or so extreme, but it's, it's more just my appreciation of being able to. Carry his name. I think my feelings about running have changed. I think initially it was, this was like my retreat from, from dealing with, uh, whatever anger or, uh, [00:26:00] guilt or whatever that I felt inside. Running has really been kind of my meditation and my form of counseling because, uh, for whatever reason, it just, uh, puts me at ease and I think it lets me experience, uh, painful moments, uh, well mainly physically, but, uh, allows me to put myself in these situations that are tough, that I have to bring myself back from.

But, uh. I also can experience massive joy for them.

Paddy: In other words, Lawlor is no longer running away from his pain. He's running towards life. That's the odd thing about grief and loss. They often come along with a deeper understanding and a new perspective, which I think is why the poem that was read at Hunter's Funeral, the poem that gave the foundation its name.

Also gave the co family a guiding light. What amazes me about the cos [00:27:00] is that they've continued relentlessly moving forward, not in spite of their suffering, but with it toward a place where they or all of us can be the boat.

Lawlor : And I saw the river over which every soul must pass to reach the kingdom of heaven.

Kristen: And the name of that river was suffering.

Mark: And I saw a boat which carries souls across the river.

Kristen: And the name of that boat was love.

Mark: And the name of that boat was love. And the name of that boat was love.

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR

PADDYO VO:

June 7, 2025 marked ten years since Hunter's death. As a family, the Coes have stepped tentatively forward and have found healing in the memory of a son and brother who was generous, fun-loving, and there for you in challenging moments. Hunter’s character guided the founding of the Be The Boat Foundation in 2016, which has raised nearly $1-million [00:28:00] for mental health services for kids. Lawlor and his very busy feet have raised over $150K of that in 500 or so race miles. That is a lot of success, however great need still exists. Philanthropy is empathy made actionable so please consider donating today.  Visit Be The Boat Dot Org.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline offering one-on-one support for mental health, suicide, and substance use-related problems for individuals in need of help or for those looking to support. To speak with a certified listener or a counselor dial 988. It's free, confidential, and available all day, every day.

This episode originally aired in 2021. It was produced by me, Paddy O'Connell, but you can can call me PaddyO. This episode was originally edited by Michael Roberts, and music was by Louis Weeks. Replay editing by Micah "I got your back" Abrams. Additonal sound design by Robbie [00:29:00] Carver. Booking and Research by Maren Larsen.

And, remember listeners , we want to hear from ya. Email your pod reactions, guest nominations, and all other pod related inquiries to ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Podcast At ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Inc Dot Com.

The ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Podcast is made possible by our ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Plus members. Learn about all the extra rad benefits and become a member yourself at ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Online Dot Com Slash Pod Plus.

This episode is dedicated to Hunter Coe and his enduring love and laughter, and for all those like him. We remember you. And we love you.