Life Story: Meagan Marie Welsh, 32, formerly of Festus
Meagan Welsh did everything in a “super-sized” way, according to her mother.
“Everything was to an extreme amount,” said Christine Cento, 57, of Festus. “Nothing could stop her, and her heart was so big.”
But there was an unseen cost.
“She absorbed all the pain she saw in the world and took it home with her,” Christine said. “But she never showed it. She was the last image you could possibly think of when you think of someone suffering from depression and sadness.”
That made it all the more shocking when Meagan took her own life on July 28 at age 32.
“I want her story to be told,” Christine said. “She changed so many people’s lives for the better. How could she have been so kind, loving, happy on the outside and yet in so much pain on the inside that she couldn’t see herself through others’ eyes?”
Meagan was a happy child who read early and had an advanced vocabulary, her mother said.
“Her father and I divorced when she was 2, so it was just the two of us early on,” Christine said. “She was incredibly ahead of herself in years as far as maturity, intelligence, wit. She had a memory like a sponge. She just lit up everything around her.”
Her parents both remarried, and Meagan spent time with both families, becoming an enthusiastic big sister to her father’s two little girls.
Meagan’s teenage years were unexpectedly easy.
“I was a ‘your mom knows nothing’ kind of teenager, and I fully expected that from her,” Christine said. “But she was so much more mature, smarter, more knowledgeable than I was. There were only a handful of times during her growing up that we had any kind of disagreement.”
Meagan graduated from Festus High School and studied psychology at the University of Missouri. Her love of horses led her to volunteer at a therapeutic riding facility, where she was influenced by an occupational therapist there to choose OT as a career. She got into an accelerated program, her mother said, and graduated from Mizzou with a master’s degree after five years.
She was hired by the Rehab Institute of St. Louis at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and spent four years on the spinal cord injury floor.
One of her first patients was a young man paralyzed in a diving accident.
“They quickly related because of their age,” Christine said. “She helped him through his recovery, regaining use of his arms.”
He motivated her to go skydiving, something she had long wanted to do, and she got him involved with a wheelchair basketball team.
“He’s now practicing with the Olympic team,” Christine said. “She literally took this young man who felt he had no future and helped him figure out how to live a full and productive and happy life. That’s just one small example of how she went the extra mile.”
She more recently worked as a traveling therapist based in Columbia.
The high-pressure nature of her work took a toll on Meagan’s mental health. She had begun weekly therapy sessions with a psychiatrist and was taking medication for depression.
Her therapist recommended that Meagan get a pet so she wouldn’t come home to an empty house. She adopted Astrid as a puppy from a rescue center, and the two quickly bonded.
“She would call me almost every day on her way home from work,” Christine said. “I’d hear her open the door, and how happy her voice was when she greeted Astrid.”
Christine said the family had planned a camping and floating trip.
“She wasn’t much on that kind of thing, and she said, ‘Mom, why don’t you guys go and I’ll stay with the dogs and have a mini-vacation in the pool?’” Christine said. “She was supposed to come early enough to go over some things like the pool filter. I told her about some of the foods I was leaving here for her and she sent me a thumbs-up emoji. That’s the last I heard from her.”
When Meagan didn’t arrive or respond to texts or phone calls, Christine headed to Columbia to see what was wrong.
“I talked to her stepmom, Tasha, and she called the police to do a wellness check.”
Christine arrived there first, though, and let herself in. She found an opened box of sleep aids in the kitchen.
“She had crushed them up and fed them to the dog,” Christine said. “She waited for Astrid to fall asleep before ending the dog’s life, then laid down beside her and ended her own.”
The notes Meagan left, she said, were more logical than emotional.
“She had written down phone numbers and addresses, the PIN for her phone. She had left everything where I’d have it all at my fingertips,” her mother said.
Christine said she has learned a lot about the state of mind of those who decide on suicide.
“Their desire is not to die; they think only of getting the pain and sadness to stop, of getting peace,” she said. “It’s like they enter a tunnel, and there’s no turning back. They feel relief that it’s almost over. The end is in sight.”
Christine believes the first step in preventing suicide is remove the stigma.
“I just want people to know that it needs to be talked about,” she said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. My daughter was amazing and there was nothing weak about what she did. It was the only choice she was able to see and it took desperate courage.
“People are afraid to come out and say, ‘Are you thinking about harming yourself?’ because they think that’ll push them to do it. But by doing so, there’s a chance that individual will think, ‘Oh, my gosh – they see me!’ and have the courage to ’fess up.
“From the outside, she had everything to live for. She knew she was loved, she had friends, a great job, a strong family – but the pain was just too big. There were times, thinking back, that I thought about digging deeper – prying if you will – but I didn’t want to risk pushing her away even more. Out of fear of losing her, I held back. Knowing what I know now, I’d risk it a thousand times over.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.