Sarah Houle gives an emotional speech June 13, 2016, during the memorial service for her only child, Michael Houle.(Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Michael Houle's senior portrait from South St. Paul High School, class of 2014. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

A photograph of a young Michael Houle being held by his mother, Sarah, sits next to a guest book at Michael Houle's memorial service June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Michael Houle's grandfather Ed Essling becomes emotional while speaking during the memorial service for Houle on June 13, 2016. By his side is Houle's grandmother, Loni Essling. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Kenton Spading looks at a photograph of Michael Houle working on a robotics project during the visitation for Houle on June 13, 2016. Spading, an engineer, was Houle's mentor. The pair formed a father-son-like bond, and Spading encouraged Houle's engineering interests. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)



Sarah Houle hugs a mourner before the memorial service for her 20-year-old son, Michael, on June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Pictures of Michael Houle were set out during his visitation and memorial service June 13, 2016, at Kandt & Tetrick Funeral Home in South St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

A line of visitors waiting to sign a guest book extended out the door at Kandt & Tetrick Funeral Home in South St. Paul on June 13, 2016, during the memorial service for Michael Houle, 20, who died May 30. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Carolyn Hudson throws up her arms in emotion shortly before the service for Michael Houle on June 13, 2016. "He was so considerate," she said following the service. "He would call me out of the blue and say, 'Grandma, how are you doing?" (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Sarah Houle gives an emotional speech June 13, 2016, during the memorial service for her only child, Michael Houle, who died by suicide after becoming addicted to drugs. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)



Brian Schneider wears a shirt honoring nephew Michael Houle at the memorial service for Houle on June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Tears stream down the face of Carolyn Hudson as she shares memories of grandson Michael Houle during his memorial service June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Kathy McCalley, a second cousin to Michael Houle, hugs Houle's mother, Sarah, after speaking during his memorial service June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Andy Rathbun)

Loni Essling reflects on her grandson Michael Houle, who hung himself at age 20. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Michael Houle's letter jacket shows how actively involved he was in the life of South St. Paul High School. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)



"My kid died two deaths, drugs killed him and finally he hung himself," says Sarah Houle about her son, Michael. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

With her son’s ashes on display in an urn behind her, Sarah Houle gripped the podium at the funeral home.

“My son died two deaths,” Houle told the mourners. “He died about 18 months ago from the drugs. And then he died on May 30.”

Michael Houle — after a terrible weekend that involved a break-up, a car crash and drugs — hanged himself. He was 20 years old.

His mother learned of his death offhand, via comments on Facebook.

Michael’s mother wants to share this story in the hopes it can help others, especially those who are struggling.

“Get help,” she advised. “Whether it be for drug addiction, depression or thoughts of suicide. Reach out to the people who love you — who truly love you — and want to help you.”

‘HE HAD SO MANY HOPES’

Her son’s memorial service was held on an overcast day this summer at Kandt Tetrick, a funeral home in South St. Paul, the community where Michael Houle grew up.

“Directly across from the high school where I used to drop him off for football practice,” said Houle, 37, of St. Paul. “Right next to the parking lot where he parked his car, his first car, that we bought him. The field that he played on, where they won the division. Just so many memories.

“He had so many hopes,” she said, her voice catching with emotion. “ … and dreams.”

So did his mom.

Her dreams are different now.

“I always told him he’d change the world, but my idea of him changing the world would not be in death,” Houle said. “But if it has to be in death that he changes something, so be it. After he died, a friend of mine told me, ‘Everybody lives their lifetime.’ Their own lifetime. Not your lifetime — their lifetime.

“I know you don’t normally report on suicide, but it’s important. People need to not be ashamed that their loved one committed suicide. My son passed away from suicide and depression and drugs.”

She was just 18 when she gave birth to her son — her only child — on May 9, 1996.

“He was my one and only,” she said. “With the exception of family, I raised him by myself. I always made sure I knew where he was at. I didn’t let him go to people’s houses I didn’t know. He couldn’t even leave the block until he was 10 … I did everything a mother who loves her son — her child — could possibly do to keep him alive, keep him safe. Fed, clothed, educated. I wanted him to be well rounded.”

Earlier this summer, Houle and her mother, Loni Essling, sat in their living room in St. Paul, surrounded by pictures and memories of their son and grandson, and tried to figure out when the shadow overcame their child’s light.

“If you look at the timeline of his life, you can see this incredibly fast downward spiral,” Houle said.

“It’s really hard for us to grasp,” Essling said, “because we never would have expected this — ever.”

“It all happened within about a year and a half,” Houle said.

“Maybe just a year,” Essling said.

In high school, Michael was No. 68 on the South St. Paul football team and a member of the National Honor Society. He was one of the founding members of the robotics team. Even though he struggled with dyslexia and depression, he did well enough in school to be accepted at the University of St. Thomas. His plan, when he began college in fall 2014, was to study engineering.

This is when things get murky for his mom.

“When he went to college, I spoke to him here and there, but he was in college,” she said. “I thought he was off doing what college kids do. And he did. He was working, too. And he had a girlfriend.”

It wasn’t going well, though, his mother has discovered since.

COLLEGE LIFE

The girlfriend — who spoke to the Pioneer Press on condition of anonymity — painted a picture of a young man having trouble with that transition from high school to college.

“He felt pressure to be the prodigy, to be this great engineer,” she says. “I think it was really stressing him out.”

College life and the engineering classes weren’t what he expected.

“He struggled with his core classes — physics and classes like that — but did fine with the regular ones,” she said.

He pushed himself.

“He told me he took Adderall for finals,” she said. “He wanted to show that he could do this, that he could figure this out, that he could be this straight-A person. He didn’t want to disappoint people.”

He also smoked marijuana at this time, the girlfriend said.

After struggling through his first year of college, Michael moved back home in 2015. He was working two jobs — as a pizza delivery driver and as part of a landscape crew — and while he continued at St. Thomas for a time, he and his mom were also looking into an auto body program at Saint Paul College.

“He was a good kid,” Houle said. “He paid all his own bills — he even helped me pay some of my bills when my hours were cut at work. He was the only 19-year-old I knew with a credit score of over 700.”

Michael’s family is still sorting out the timeline of his descent into drugs. His mom is currently trying to gain access to his social media accounts to piece together the details. The police investigation into his death revealed that he was both using and selling “various illegal drugs.”

“He kept a lot from me,” Sarah Houle said. “His favorite saying was, ‘I’m fine.’ Have you seen that tattoo that says ‘I’m fine’ — but if you flip it, it says, ‘Save me’?

“He wasn’t fine.”

His grandmother nodded.

“That’s what he would say to me, too,” Essling said. “Grandma, ‘I’m OK. Don’t worry.’ ”

But they did worry, especially after he began changing — everything from his behavior to his weight to his friends.

“He was just so angry,” Houle said.

She tried to get to the bottom of it.

“I would search his car, I would search his room, and I got onto his phone twice,” she said. “I actually did find marijuana and a scale and pills in his car. He promised he was done. He said he’d get off Facebook. We changed his phone number.”

But things didn’t get better.

“He would accuse me of stealing his money when in actuality, he didn’t remember where he put it,” she said. “I would have conversations with him where he’d be there but he wouldn’t be there. I’d be like, ‘What is wrong with you?’ I’d notice his eyes were glassy, his pupils were different. He’d say he was at work; he wasn’t at work.

“I remember, when we were going through all of this, telling him, ‘Michael, I’ll know it’s really bad when I start getting late notices for your bills.’ And I did.”

By 2016, he had moved out, and his girlfriend also broke up with him over his continued drug use.

HIS MOTHER AND HIS MENTOR

Back in high school, one of Michael’s teachers helped connect him with a mentor, a civil engineer named Kenton Spading.

Michael might have needed a mentor and a father figure, but Spading was impressed with the mom the boy already had.

Once, Spading recalls, when the muffler fell off Michael’s car, Houle got down on the ground and temporarily re-affixed it with wire coat hangers while her son was in class.

“I told Michael that I didn’t think every mother out there would do that,” Spading said.

But moms can’t fix all problems so easily.

“Have you heard of the book ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’?” Spading asked. “It’s a book about male depression. I read the book about two years ago and saw a lot of things that were talked about in the book in Michael. Male depression doesn’t manifest in males the same way it does in females. Females will act depressed and you’ll know — they’ll be sad. With males, it goes the other way — they’ll be the life of the party; the quarterback on the football team; they’ll appear to have everything going for them when underneath they are hurting, they are struggling.

“Michael struggled for a long time with things.”

Many people tried to help him with his depression, with his drug use, with his life — his mother, his mentor, his ex-girlfriend. It appears that Michael was not yet ready to accept help.

“In the end,” Spading said, “you have no control over another person.”

In May, Houle had been estranged from her son for about four months. By then, he was living in Bloomington and still working as a pizza delivery driver. He was also dating someone new.

“I had been on him and then thought, ‘OK, I’ll just give him some time, I’ll give him some space,’ ” Houle said. “In the past, he’d always come back and things always worked out.”

That night in May, she was working an overnight shift at her job when a mutual friend texted her.

“Have you talked to your son?” the friend asked.

“No,” Houle replied. “Why? What’s going on?”

“I’m just going to send you the screenshots.”

The screenshots were of messages posted to her son’s Facebook wall, which she did not have access to as he had blocked her.

The messages were memorials:

“Mike, the world lost a good guy today.”

“You were a beautiful soul.”

“You will really be missed.”

After reading the screenshots, Houle called her son’s phone.

“It went straight to voicemail,” she said, “but that was nothing new because he had blocked me from calling him as well.”

Next, she called another mutual contact.

“You haven’t heard?” the woman said. “He hung himself.”

HIS FINAL WEEKEND

A roommate at the home where Michael had been staying in Bloomington found his body hanging in the garage on the morning of May 30.

Michael’s final weekend had been chaotic, according to an investigation by Bloomington police that recently wrapped up.

“I have found that Michael Houle had experienced at least three serious events in his life prior to taking his own life,” according to the police investigator’s report. “Houle had broken up with a serious girlfriend, gotten an expensive speeding ticket and crashed his vehicle. Houle’s vehicle was very important as that was his means of income being a pizza delivery driver. Those major events coupled with drug use (known by family and friends and confirmed by toxicology) likely drove him to his choice of taking his own life.”

In July, Michael’s mother got the details of her son’s toxicology report. She posted a photo of these words:

Meth

Cocaine

Xanax

Doxlamine

Extacy (sic) (MDMA)

MDA (Sally)

She wrote: “Drugs that were found in my son’s system.”

Essling, Michael’s grandmother, replied: “He was not the Michael we all knew and he promised me he was not doing these drugs. I knew it after a while also. You tried and so did we but he pushed us all away from trying to help because we loved him. My heart aches and will always, forever.”

At the memorial service, one of Michael’s uncles, David Houle, took the podium. He looked behind him at all the photos of Michael, including a prominent one of the young man as a nearly grown rugby player.

He remembered how that big, strong athlete pictured was once a baby that the family called “Mr. Chunk.”

Then, he offered some advice.

“It’s sad that it had to happen like this,” he said. “You never expect it. You don’t see it coming. You never know. So the time you have with your family, your friends, your close ones, your loved ones? Just cherish it. Because it could be gone — just like that. And you’ll never get a chance to say goodbye. So tell everyone you care about that you love them. Because it’s not worth it. To be angry. To be mad. Because then you forget what really matters. And that’s friends and that’s family and that’s love.”