Donna's Law: A new suicide prevention tool

Katrina Brees credits her love of art to her whimsical, talented mother. For more than a decade, the two worked side-by-side producing parades in New Orleans. Her fond memories of her mom include "just her dancing in a parade, just her feeling the music, feeling the audience, giving love."

But the person who seemed so carefree was a tormented soul, in a constant battle with bipolar disorder. In 2018 she wrote a letter to her psychiatrist: "Dear Doctor, It has been nine months since this episode began. I am not doing well. How long must I endure this?"

Her mother answered her own question just a few days later. On June 26, 2018, she bought a gun and fatally shot herself. She did it beneath the Tree of Life, a New Orleans landmark. "It was the most special spot she could choose," said Brees. "It's where many of our friends have had weddings. We've had funerals there. The space is so sacred. It feels to me like she laid herself on the cathedral of our community and died there."