Joe’s Shining Light was established by the Chearmonte family in memory of our son Gordon Joseph Chearmonte. We hope you find the contents posted on this website useful and informative. Before you browse, here’s a little background regarding the journey we must navigate.

Our son Joe completed suicide suddenly and sadly on February 23rd, 2010 one week after his 17th birthday.  As you can imagine, losing a child is the absolute worst nightmare any parent and family should have to endure.  This has been and still is the most difficult period in our lives.  No matter what we say here, we cannot bring him back.  While this devastating tragedy is very difficult to discuss and comprehend, we feel the only positive outcome from our story is to help other young people, families, and community become aware of the serious nature of this issue.  Until this happened, we simply were not aware that suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people ages 15 to 24 years old. This is an alarming statistic! Hopefully, through advocacy, and participation in conjunction with dedicated, quality organizations and experts we will be able to enhance awareness and help everyone understand the plethora of avenues available for prevention and support.  We need to make an effort to eliminate the stigma and taboo nature surrounding the issues of teen depression and suicide. If we are able to prevent one person from taking their own life, we feel our efforts and our son’s life would not be in vain. 

We also feel compelled to publically thank our family, friends, neighbors, and extended community for all the thoughts, prayers and generous support for us.  We are so humbled and overwhelmed by the response during our time of crisis.  We feel blessed to have such compassionate people in our lives to give us strength and encouragement. Survival of the devastating and tragic loss of our son, and sharing with you on this website, could not be possible without everyone’s support. Our family is forever grateful for your love and kindness as we continue on our challenging journey.  Everything is, and always will be, different for us now but we recognize we have to make the best of our lives and will always have Joe in our hearts.

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