By Her View From Home 
Trigger warning: This post discusses suicide and death
Headlines are spreading on national news about the deaths of Bailey, Jeremy, Hudson, and Asher Koch in rural Nebraska over the weekend.
As we previously shared, Bailey was a longtime contributor and dear friend of this website and the very real and brokenhearted people behind it.
Reading the headlines is hard.
But they’re a call to action.
We are former journalists. We’ve worked in newsrooms where tragedy like this is covered. It is news, and it’s undoubtedly a shocking headline.
But we also knew Bailey personally. We shared her vulnerable words time and time again. We loved her. We feel a fierce need to tell her story.
But how?
We can almost hear her saying it, red curls bouncing while she wags a finger in our faces, “Just keep them talking!”
Keep them talking.
As we contemplated how to honor her life as her writing community and help keep her voice alive, we realized Bailey left us the answer. Just tell her story.
Bailey, Jeremy, Hudson, and Asher need their story told.
The truth about Bailey’s life is that it’s so much more than her death.
She fought.
She fought to change the conversation we have about mental illness. She fought for help for those afraid to admit they need it. She fought for better treatment, better research, better understanding.
She challenged us.
She challenged us to separate the person from the illness. She challenged us to get uncomfortable and learn from it. She challenged us to be honest, to stop hiding our hard and our hurt, to speak up.
She cared.
She cared for the hundreds of strangers who reached out to her because of her writing. She cared for her husband and her boys as only a wife and a mother can. She cared for her community, in Nebraska and beyond.
And ultimately, she loved.
She loved her husband. She loved her children. She loved her family, her friends, and most especially, her Jesus.
So while you’re going to see headlines and news specials and lots of keyboard warriors in the coming weeks talking about Bailey and her family’s tragic deaths, please look deeper.
Read their story.
Allow yourself to be challenged by Bailey’s honesty.
Feel the anger. The grief. The questioning. The horror. The heartbreak. The doubt. The fury. The helplessness.
Acknowledge it all.
But don’t let it paralyze you.
Let it change you, like it changed Bailey.
Hear her telling you to stand up. To fight. To challenge. To care. To love.
Tell Bailey’s story. Tell your story.
The one voice we long to hear from in all of this is hers—she would have been posting ways to support a grieving community, highlighting the need for not just compassion, but action.
Though today she’s gone, her words—her advocacy, her legacy, her revolution—remain.
Hear them.
Headlines will tell you how Bailey’s life ended.
We want you to know how she lived.
Resources:
Anchoring Hope for Mental Health
Statement from Bailey’s family
Bailey’s work on Her View From Home
by Julie Anne Waterfield 
