After his teenage son's death by suicide in 2015, Doug Peterson, who was so racked by survivor's guilt that it took him a year to find the willpower to get moving. But once he did, the auctioneer from Oregon refused to stop, ultimately turning a rediscovered passion for cycling into a charity ride to raise money and awareness for National Suicide Prevention Month.
Doug Peterson remembers coming home from work and walking around to the backyard, drawn by the joyful sound of teenage laughter, and finding that his son's friends had set up the family trampoline by the swimming pool.
It was in January 2015 that 17-year-old Page Peterson, the carefree boy who pitched on the baseball field and tore down the slopes on his snowboard, took his own life. He was among more than 2,000 teenagers that would die by suicide in that year alone, a number that is both staggering and heartbreaking.
"I read a book about recovery," Peterson said, "and it talked about exercise, so I dusted off the bike, went out and rode one day. Thought, 'This was good.' Then I went out the next day, and I started doing some longer distances." "Doug and I were chatting about Page, and both of us are kind of fixers by nature. We hear something that bothers us or isn't right and we have to do something," Stuart explained. "I know their family well. I know how amazing of parents they are, and this one hit me hard. I know they would have done anything for their kids."
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