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Three years after a Johnson County boy’s suicide, his family is using his image and story to help prevent other families from experiencing a similar tragedy.
Throughout September, which was Suicide Awareness Month, Aidan Riley’s photo was used for a national billboard campaign by OUTFRONT Media and COMMCare, which manages the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in Kansas City, to bring awareness to teen suicide.
Aidan’s parents, Mike and Ellen Riley, said they learned quickly how far-reaching the billboards’ impacts could be.
“Mike got a text from somebody in the Kansas City Notre Dame club that happened to be out in L.A. and she said she was just driving on the highway, and she was like, ‘I couldn’t believe it. I saw Aidan right there and I did not expect to see that,'” Ellen Riley told the Post in a recent interview.
Aidan died by suicide on May 24, 2021, at the age of 14.
Seeing her son’s face on a billboard closer to home in downtown Kansas City was emotional, Ellen said.
“That’s my son on the billboard. So I’m proud of him,” she said. “I obviously think he’s handsome and wonderful, but it’s painful because of why he’s there, and so we have really committed to speaking up about suicide awareness.”
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Aidan’s suicide came as a shock
The son of two educators and a brother to two other siblings, Aidan’s struggles in early 2021 didn’t show on the surface.
“He had everything going,” Mike Riley said. “Very intelligent gifted, athletic, lots of friends.”
Aidan got in trouble for making an inappropriate post in a private group chat of which someone else took a screenshot and shared with others.
“There was a lot of gossip that surrounded what happened to Aidan, and a lot of it wasn’t true,” Ellen said.
Since his death, Ellen and Mike have used the tragedy as a way to spread awareness, whether it’s promoting Team Aidan at mental health fundraisers, speaking at schools or being a contact for other parents and kids, urging them to be open about what situations and emotions they’re experiencing.
“If we want to really address the epidemic of the crisis, we have to be more vulnerable and connect,” Ellen said.
‘Flip The Culture’
After hearing about Aidan’s story, OUTFRONT Media, a firm that runs nationwide advertising on highway and roadside billboards, met with the Rileys about incorporating his photo with the company’s suicide prevention campaign.
Advertising the 9-8-8 Hotline, the billboards incorporated the logo from the Rileys’ own Team Aidan initiative, a graphic created by Kansas-based design firm Keely Daly.
The billboards included the tagline: “Flip The Culture. Be Brave Enough to Be Kind.”
“It’s kind of like, ‘Move in and understand people’s stories, and then it might be easier to treat them with kindness when you want to react with (anger),'” Ellen said.
‘It’s through vulnerability you connect’
Shortly after Aidan died, Ellen and Michael decided they were going to use their son’s story to try and help prevent other families from going through the same grief and trauma.
“I think the way you survive something like this is to find a purpose for that pain,” Ellen said. “Some people don’t. They kind of shut down. But I guess we never felt that because we’ve got other kids to raise. We just never felt like that was an option, and Aidan deserves to have his story told.”
In the past three years, both have said they’ve met countless people drawn to Aidan’s story, who shared their deepest concerns and emotions.
“We’ve become the people that people are comfortable reaching out to in a variety of ways, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s grief and loss, whether it’s parenting or social media,” Ellen said. “It’s through vulnerability that you connect with other people.”
While Aidan’s image was used on billboards last month for Suicide Prevention Month, the Rileys are hoping to continue to work with COMMCare to put his story out because it personalizes the message about suicide awareness and prevention.
“I think it’s just that message of kindness and that Aidan mattered,” Mike Riley said. “It’s a reminder that we always need to meet each other with kindness and understanding.”
