HUDSON: Kevin O’Brien remembers everything about the moment the phone rang.The call came in at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2000.He was living in New York City, and his roommate picked up the call.“I’m so sorry, Mrs. O’Brien,” he heard his roommate say.Then O’Brien, 37, now an English teacher, coach and freshman dean at Western Reserve Academy, took the phone and heard his mother’s voice.“Conor’s gone,” his mother told him.Conor O’Brien was Kevin’s 22-year-old brother. The night before the phone call, he took his life by hanging himself in his parents’ garage in Gates Mills.O’Brien will tell the story of his brother, who struggled with bipolar disorder, at the eighth annual Suicide Prevention Education Alliance’s Into the Light Walk at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.September is Suicide Prevention Month.O’Brien said he knew something was not right when he saw that his mother had called once, then hung up, so early in the morning, then called again.When he heard the words that his brother had killed himself, he went into a rage and began tearing up his apartment.Then he went to Mass at a nearby Catholic church.He landed at a bar his brother liked, McSorley’s Old Ale House on East Seventh Street, and met with friends. Later that Sunday, he flew back to Ohio to be with his family.It has been almost 11 years, and O’Brien hopes that by telling his story he will help young people who might be going through hard times like what his brother experienced.A graduate of Phillips Academy, in Andover, Mass., and the University of Pennsylvania, O’Brien worked in the film business and for a hedge fund before realizing his call was to become a teacher.It was after his brother’s suicide and after witnessing the first plane slam into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, that O’Brien decided to make a change in his life.He taught English and coached at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Md., before coming to Western Reserve Academy seven years ago.His brother, he said, was first diagnosed with sleeplessness, anxiety and paranoia at the age of 14. He was hospitalized a few times after that and at age 18 was diagnosed as bipolar.“He would have these times when he was the center of attention — gregarious, outgoing, not the life of the party, but most people knew him as very confident, outgoing and funny,” O’Brien said.But then he would also withdraw and went through clinical depression.At the time he finally graduated from Western Reserve Academy in 1996, there was less understanding of what his brother was experiencing, in the days before widespread easy access to information on the Internet.“We didn’t have a handle on what he was going through,” O’Brien said. There was still a stigma attached to mental illness at the time.“He had highs and lows and tended to be hyper manic,” he said of his brother’s behavior.Conor O’Brien, a terrific athlete, wound up at Ohio Wesleyan University. He got into trouble with police when he vandalized the student center and was charged with a felony for the damage he caused, his brother said.O’Brien said his brother was hospitalized, spent five days in jail, and was traumatized by the experience.A plea arrangement was reached allowing Conor to receive probation, his brother said. It was while waiting for a final sentence that Conor killed himself.Earlier that day, he had given his mother a pillow and a scented candle for her birthday that was being celebrated that week. When she returned from an errand, she could not find Conor.She discovered a Bible opened to the book of Luke in Conor’s room. And when she opened the garage door, she found his body.“My brother felt he was bringing bad luck to the family,” said O’Brien, who is the lacrosse coach and also is junior varsity soccer coach at Western Reserve.Help and hope The idea of the Sunday walk is to provide awareness, education and hope to young people and to shine a light on depression and suicide prevention, O’Brien said. The walk’s goal is also to provide an opportunity for survivors of suicide to experience healing in a safe, anonymous way and to raise funds to support SPEA and its program, Recognizing Teen Depression and Preventing Suicide, which is currently delivered in 102 Northeast Ohio high schools, backers of the walk said.O’Brien said he feels a great need to share his story with young people.“It affects all of us,” he said of depression and suicide. He said he struggles with seasonal affective disorder and works to get enough sleep and exercise in the winter months.O’Brien encourages people who are struggling to ask for help and to not be ashamed.More than a decade later, he still dreads phone calls late at night or early in the morning.“Education, awareness, compassion,” is the message he said he gives.“These incredibly hard lessons have paradoxically been life-affirming, daily reminding me how precious life is,” he said. “I think of Conor every day.”Mostly, O’Brien said, he does not want others to ever get a phone call like he received from his mother.“It is a nightmare,” receiving such news. “I want no one to get that call. That is what motivates me.”Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or at jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.