{"id":12378,"date":"2026-10-25T10:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T10:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=12378"},"modified":"2026-10-25T10:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T10:43:14","slug":"man-who-created-reasons-to-stay-website-after-brothers-death-tearfully-shares-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=12378","title":{"rendered":"Man who created \u2018Reasons to Stay\u2019 website after brother\u2019s death, tearfully shares success story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

People can write a letter to a stranger and be their reason to stay another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This story discusses suicide. If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is in need of help, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a United States-based suicide prevention network of over 200+ crisis centers that provides 24\/7 service via a toll-free hotline with the number 9-8-8. It is available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental illnesses like depression don\u2019t discriminate. It can hit anyone, and not everyone survives their fight with the condition. Ben West, a man from the United Kingdom, has intimate familiarity with what happens when someone loses their battle with depression. He lost his younger brother, Sam, to suicide eight years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to help with his own grieving process and connect with those who may feel alone, he created a website. The video launching the site Reasons to Stay went viral due to its touching story and noble mission. It\u2019s a website that allows people from across the world to leave letters of encouragement to people who may be contemplating suicide. The hope is that someone needing a reason to stay one more day will find their reason in one of those letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"suicide<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The website is simple: it displays the latest letter on the home page, offers sign ups for letters to go directly to your email in the form of a newsletter, and shares places to seek help. If someone wants to read a different letter, all they need to do is refresh the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis letter was written by someone in the world that cares. It was delivered to you at random when you opened this page,\u201d the Reasons to Stay<\/em> website explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creation of this website was strictly an act of compassion for fellow humans, but recently, West received an email revealing that his site saved a life. The website\u2019s founder wept while sharing the news on his Instagram page, saying, \u201cI got a message today, and I\u2019m not going to share the message, but what I can share is that it worked. It worked for someone. We can be fairly confident that it really worked for someone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"suicide<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He admits that the person still has a difficult journey ahead, but celebrates that they get to continue on at all. \u201cLike I said before, social media, it can be such a bad place, but how amazing that it can be used for something like this. Like, that person, maybe it wouldn\u2019t reach them if it didn\u2019t go viral, so thank you so much, everyone, for sharing and getting involved in this over the last couple of weeks. What a special thing. What an amazing thing. It worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Centers for Disease Control, \u201cOne person dies by suicide an average of every 11 minutes. Over 49,000 people lost their lives to suicide in 2022. Every year, millions of Americans think about, plan, or attempt suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2025, JAMA Network released an article urging people to consider human connection as a form of suicide prevention. The authors of the article share that there\u2019s power in human connection, writing, \u201cAt a time when individuals experiencing suicidality often feel unseen, unheard, and burdensome, structured follow-up sends a clear message: you matter. You are not forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasons to Stay<\/em> is putting human connection at the forefront in hopes of saving lives. People are moved by his selfless gesture, with some sharing their own stories of survival. One person shares, \u201cFrom someone who tried to, this is essential. Wish I had that back then. Will definitely use your site if those thoughts ever come back to me. I\u2019m so proud of you, and so is Sam. We\u2019re safer now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"suicide<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another writes, \u201cMy dad took his own life. I wish he could\u2019ve had a website like this to go to. I am sobbing happy tears to know that someone\u2019s life was saved, and I\u2019m also so incredibly sorry for your loss. I understand the ache\u2014 but you made something beautiful for your brother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou may or may not be familiar with David Kessler\u2019s \u201cThe sixth stage of grief,\u201d but in that book he suggests that the 6th stage is: finding meaning. You\u2019ve created meaning by saving others. Sam\u2019s spirit and legacy lives on through you and his life and death now means, not just something to you, but something to many others around the world. What an absolutely beautiful and healing way to honour Sam, and what a gift this is to the world. Thank you Sam. Thank you Ben. So special. So powerful,\u201d someone else kindly shares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People can write a letter to a stranger and be their reason to stay another day. Editor\u2019s Note: This story discusses suicide. If you are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/861834124_2302902500550971_8989682943663295177_n.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12380,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12378\/revisions\/12380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}