Erin and Matt Georgia thought they'd seen the worst life has to offer when they went to war as U.S. Marines.

Maybe the worst was the slow, cancerous death of Erin's father, whom she helped cared for in his last days. Quite possibly, the worst was the past 1 1/2 years as they watched the oldest of their three children struggle with depression and anxiety and identity.

Or so they thought, until about 5 a.m. Thursday, May 25, when they found their 13-year-old transgender son, Jay Griffin, dead from suicide in the bedroom of his Trussville home.

It was a shock. They didn't see it coming. But Erin and Matt are determined to not let Jay's death define his life, or theirs. In the midst of their devastation is faith, and hope for change. "I don't know if this going to be the worst and I never look forward to the worst times in my life, but I look forward to the strength and the person I will become because of this,'' Erin said in an extensive interview with Al.com, "because I am dead set on being the absolute best person I can be in this life, and showing that God's love shines through us all."

And there is also a message: "It is because of his bright spirit and personal struggles that many lives have been changed and many more questions will be pondered. Unprompted, Jay would tell them to challenge what they think they know, and to discuss all perspectives."

Jay Griffin was a seventh grader at Hewitt-Trussville Middle School. He was born female in 2003 at Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital, and lived most of his life as Jane Marie, taking part in the American Heritage Girls scouting organization, youth lacrosse and playing the clarinet in the middle school band. "We started sixth grade as Jane Marie and then halfway through the year we became Jay. Jay discovered that Jay was Jay,'' Erin said. "There was a transition from long hair, and he started dressing differently but there was never a big 'aha moment' for us."

Erin said she's not sure there was ever an 'aha moment' for Jay either. "That was a personal thing I never bugged him about. I was concerned about loving and accepting and trying understand his perspective," she said. "We've always just loved and accepted our children for whoever they are. I'm a very outspoken, tattooed Christian, very strong in my faith. We were just encouraging Jay. I would notice things as a mother and was like, 'Hey, anything you want to talk to me about, I'm here.'''

That's not to say it was easy. "Don't get me wrong, I mourned the loss of a daughter but then I realized that I'd been praying for a son my whole life,'' Erin said. "God answered that prayer, in just a different way."

It was uncharted territory. For the family, their friends, the community and Hewitt-Trussville Middle School. "The story that I really want to tell is how supportive the schools have been, and have been through this whole process,'' Erin said. "We met with them, we talked with them. Dr. (Patti) Neill (superintendent) was there and we all talked about how we could help Jay. They have always been on the front lines. There's nothing more they could have done."

"Jay was not ready to come out to the world in the sixth grade. Jay wasn't really ready at the end,'' she said. "It's a very personal process, but the schools have always been very attentive."

Matt said some people were told about Jay's ongoing journey, and others figured it out. "I had talked to Jay about that, asked him, 'Who do you want to know?' He always told me that he would tell the people he wanted to know when it came to that,'' he said.

There were tangible difficulties. For example, the school allowed Jay to use the faculty bathroom, but it was so far away from his classes that he often he couldn't, or wouldn't, go throughout the entire school day. There were more internal struggles.

"He didn't feel validated or accepted in our community,'' Erin said. "You really need a safe space of allies and advocates and people that are like you. That's where they hear their true voices. There are no local community safe spaces that I know of, and we've looked. That was part of Jay's struggle."

"As Jay was going through this journey, he would go to church with us. The church was welcoming, but there was no safe space and that is my biggest point,'' Erin said. "Me and Jay would go to different churches to find places that were safe for us. I say us because I often feel like an outsider because I just love everybody, and that's kind of hard in a Christian Bible Belt state."

"We're so adamant about what we believe and we should be passionate about our beliefs, but it's when we start judging and excluding people because of our beliefs that we get into trouble,'' she said. "I think that is where Jay fought most of his demons."

Jay battled depression and anxiety. "We were under the care of a psychologist from Day 1,'' Erin said. Jay attended group therapy, and also met with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. In February, he started taking medication. "We would have highs and lows. Who knows if that contributed? I'm not going to run that over in my head,'' Erin said. "It definitely seemed to be an imbalance problem. We were still tweaking the medication, but it takes time."

Jay experienced several bullying incidents. "It's probably been the roughest since the (presidential) elections, because hate crimes have increased by 20 percent since the election and people feel more validated to be more discriminatory,'' Erin said. "It wasn't from any particular student. It would be somebody in the hall saying, 'trans.' Those were very difficult times, but the teachers were very supportive."

"That's the thing about bullying, it's not always directed at one person,'' she said. "Bullies are passive-aggressive sometimes and those are the worst bullies. It's not a physical abuse, it's an emotional abuse and how do you discipline emotional abuse?"

"There was bullying because there is always bullying. There's bullying with adults, but we've learned to move away from those circles because as adults, we can,'' she said. "But as children, they're put in these public places they're required to be in. The real point is we need to promote education of diversity. Not just for the children, because the children get it. We need to reach out to parents."

Erin and Matt said they only knew of a couple of bullying incidents with Jay, and said they were addressed immediately. "We were in constant communication with the school and we talked to Jay a lot,'' she said. "I asked him if he felt like hurting himself. He had never tried to commit suicide."

"There's a lot of things that happen in your kids' lives that you don't know about. One word here could actually be 10 words in a day that he was hearing, but there were multiple people looking out for him,'' she said. "There weren't any life-defining moments because every day was a life-defining moment with Jay. You can't pinpoint it because our lives and our development are an accumulation of events daily."

The Georgias are active in the Methodist church and Erin is studying to be in the ministry. She was asked to be a "mystery worshiper,'' which is much like a mystery shopper. She was assigned to visit various churches to evaluate their inclusiveness and it was something she and Jay did together. About three weeks before Jay's death, they visited the historic First United Methodist Church in downtown Birmingham and the welcome he received was a touching moment for Jay. "He hadn't stood up and sang a Christian song in probably two years. He stood up and sang, 'Come As Your Are,''' Erin said. "He was crying and said, 'Mom, that's the first time I've every felt accepted and loved in a Christian community."

"I know God doesn't make any of these things happen, but God sees the pain we have to live with as humans and I feel like He prepares our hearts and our way,'' she said. "As a mother, it's very calming and peaceful to know that Jay experienced that love and that grace of how Jesus wants us to be - loving and accepting of all. There's a safe space we can create for everybody. When it comes down to it, our children just need to be loved and accepted."

Jay had friends and loved everybody. "He had a closet group of closet people,'' Erin said. "He had close friends, but at the same time you can't have close friends in a non-safe space environment because everybody is competing with being socially accepted. And there's all these teenager dynamics."

Jay was an advocate for the LBGTQ community. In the obituary, Erin wrote, "Between publicly educating friends and family on proper pronoun use, and privately struggling with being called by his birth name and gender, Jay continued searching for the ever-elusive balance of social acceptance and personal validation."

"It was still the first year and a half. It was fresh,'' Erin said. "He wasn't to the advocacy point. He still hadn't come out to the world. We were still in the baby stages."

He had many days of confidence, his mother said, and many days of pain and feeling like he was a bother. On the Tuesday before his suicide, "He had the best day ever. He went to the Cahaba Environmental Center, and he loved science. It was the best day. He got fossil rocks, and it was so exciting and we talked about it for hours,'' Erin said.

It was a different story the next day. "He got home from school and it was the worst day ever,'' Erin said. "It was the end of the school year, and he had stuff to turn in. It was just stress and the worst day. He was down and he was upset."

Erin and Matt spoke with Jay. They ate dinner as a family, and he snuggled with his grandmother. "We checked on him multiple times. I did not specifically ask him if he wanted to hurt himself. It was completely unexpected,'' Erin said. "He had cut before, but he always immediately came to us and told us what he did. I would just hold him and talk to him."

"Jay had highs and lows and it was no different than the low points he had in the past,'' Matt said.

"We always think depression and suicide is this downward spiral with an endpoint, but it's not,'' Erin said. "It's a really good day, and it's a really acute bad day. The worst they've ever felt. Or the most tired they've ever felt."

On Thursday morning, Jay was found dead in his bedroom. "I have peace because I don't even ask why. If you do research on suicide, if you've had friends who have committed suicide, it's not about why,'' Erin said. "The instinct we have to self-preserve is so strong that people will kill each other to survive. But to override that natural instinct, there is an imbalance, a despair, a depression, a slew of things that go into it. There's not ever just one reason."

"It's not because Jay didn't turn in his homework. It's not that Jay got bullied. It's not that Jay was transgender,'' Erin said. "It's not just one thing, so asking why for suicide is an unending question that I think we torment ourselves with. I hate to resolve death down to why."

Jay's funeral was held three days ago. In lieu of flowers, his parents asked that donations be made to the Magic City Acceptance Center, "a safe, supportive and affirming space for LBGTQ youth, young adults and their allies." The Rev. R.G. Wilson-Lyons of Birmingham First United Methodist Church opened the service by acknowledging that Jay was transgender.

This is what he said: "We are all grieving the loss of Jay, but I also know that in addition to the pain and grief, some of you are also confused. We recognize that many of you may have questions because Jay was born with biologically female characteristics and many of you knew Jay as Jane Marie. Jay, along with nearly 1.5 million Americans, about .6 percent of the population, was transgendered, meaning the he identified as a male even though he was born with female characteristics. We recognize that this probably raises many questions for some of you and we want to let you know that pastors of this church...as well as myself would be glad to meet with you at another time and try to answer your questions. But today is about honoring the memory of Jay and praising God who has overcome death and pain, so we will identify Jay as he identified himself as proclaim God's love and grace upon Jay in his life and now in his death."

Erin and Matt said the community has rallied around their family - which includes daughters Julia, 10, and Anna, 8 - in the aftermath of Jay's suicide. "As soon as we found him and called 911, the love and support that poured out of this community is just what we needed,'' Erin said. "If there's a theme in all of this, it's community."

"We're not trying to be martyrs. We're just trying to be true to Jay and to our faith and to our love of service,'' she said. "We don't have to be strong because God is strong for us and carrying us through. It's a journey for us right now, and it's going to be hard."

"There isn't anger. There is grieving and loss and lament,'' she said. "We have to mourn what we lose. We're just acknowledging our pain and loss."

They hope that Jay's death will make a difference, and believe that's already happening. "The thing that Jay would be absolutely elated by is the cheer squad coming and bringing us dinner,'' she said. "I know he sees right now that he's changing lives."

"We don't want to stop this momentum. I'm not called in this area, but I'm here to funnel the momentum into it,'' Erin said. "We're all brought together in pain and loss. Ultimately, Jay was a child and we can all relate to being a child and not feeling accepted at some point. I don't want anybody else to feel that way. Or, if they do, I want them to have a safe place to go. We just need to educate people. That's where you're going to find hope."

Asked what they wanted Jay's legacy to be, Erin said that legacy indicates an end and they don't see it that way. "Jay was active, and a force. Jay's existence is blooming in everyone else's life. It's more of a continuance."