DUPAGE COUNTY, Ill. — Among the estimated 50,000 runners who will step off for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon this month will be an Elmhurst man hoping to honor the father he lost to suicide four years ago.
As he trains, Brendan O’Brien sees running as a sort of bridge between physical health and mental health.
“Running is an opportunity to be able to look inward and to be a bit meditative,” he said one recent day. “Your body’s moving, but your brain gets to do its own thing.”
O’Brien’s father, Tom O’Brien, played lacrosse at the University of Notre Dame for four years and is widely recognized as the man who brought the sport to the western suburbs at a time when it was mainly thought of as an elite, east coast game. Tom O’Brien started youth leagues and eventually became the first lacrosse coach at Immaculate Conception Catholic Prep in Elmhurst, where he guided his son and hundreds of other student athletes in the game and in life lessons.
“Be gritty and be willing to get knocked down, and get back up,” Brendon O’Brien recalled of his dad’s advice. “Just keep trying and putting in the energy and putting in the effort and have that confidence that it’s going to pay off.”
The coach suffered with depression during the pandemic lockdowns and passed away at age 49, leaving behind a wife of 24 years and four children.
“It was clearly a struggle. The suffering he was doing silently was something that’s been hard for us to stomach,” O’Brien said. “One day he was around talking with all of us, and the next day he died. We found out he died from suicide; it was incredibly sudden.”
Brendan says he’s running to remember his father’s legacy and to promote suicide prevention as one of hundreds of runners on the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention team. He has a Notre Dame lacrosse hat embroidered with his father’s initials that he’ll wear on race day, reminding himself of his dad’s coaching with every stride.
“For me, internally it’s been a lot of time with myself, by myself, mediating on this, engaging with my dad’s death to the extent that it’s been healthy, while making sure to not ruminate on it to the point that it becomes an obsession,” he said.
Even when the course gets tough, nobody needs to run alone.
“Lacrosse is a team sport,” O’Brien said. “It’s not that you alone can get knocked down and get back up. It’s about having a team, a support network that you can reach out to that care for you and want to help you get back up.”
If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.