One year ago, syndicated radio host Delilah Renee Luke — known professionally as just Delilah — experienced the unimaginable: Her teenage son Zack killed himself at 18.
She took some time away from her job to grieve but is now back on the air and also has a new book out called "One Heart at a Time," sharing personal stories and life lessons to hopefully inspire others to examine their own lives and find purpose about what really matters.
Delilah, who also lost her son Sammy in 2012 at 16 from complications from sickle cell anemia, has raw advice for people on what not to say to parents who lose their children.
Radio personality Delilah poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018, to promote her memoir, "One Heart at a Time." (AP PhotoMark Lennihan)
"The worst thing you can do is say, 'I know how you feel.' Please don't say that to somebody who has lost a child because unless you have lost a child, you don't know how I feel. Please don't say 'He's in a better place.' I have an amazingly strong faith and I believe that my two boys are at rest with my Lord. I don't want them there. I want them here, so telling me they're in a better place is a knife to my eye," she said. "They are supposed to be in a better place when they're 70 or 80 or 90, not 17 or 18."
She continued: "Don't say to somebody who has lost a child, 'Well, they're a little angel now looking out for you.' My son is not a little cherub floating. He wasn't a cherub here on Earth, for God's sake. You know, he was a wild child. He was passionate and he was crazy."
So what do you say when you want to say something to a grieving person?
Radio personality Delilah poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018, to promote her memoir, "One Heart at a Time." (AP PhotoMark Lennihan)
"Just say, 'I love you,'" she said. "'What can I do for you? Can I pick up the kids after school? Can I take you out to dinner? Can I bring dinner to you if you don't feel like leaving the house?'"
Delilah said people need to be talking about teenage suicide. "We need to be talking about it every day. You know, back in the day, we didn't talk about teenage pregnancy. We didn't talk about how to prevent STDs. We didn't talk about health care. When I was on the air and my grandmother died from breast cancer, I wasn't allowed to say 'breast cancer.' I had to say 'cancer' or 'women's cancer.'"
Suicide rates for teens rose between 2010 and 2015 after they had declined for nearly two decades, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Why the rates went up isn't known, but Delilah said talking about it might help.
"We're talking a lot more about things that used to be hidden or shameful but we need to talk about this epidemic," she said. "There are three kids in my community who took their lives within a few months of each other."
Online: http://www.delilah.com
Follow Alicia Rancilio online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
