Community Mourns Boy's Death by Suicide
How quiet it was at Orange County High School’s Hornet Sports Center on Sunday afternoon. Few words were spoken as hundreds of people, many wearing black, made their way through the lobby.
By Hilary Holladay
This article originally appeared at Byrd Street, a local news organization covering Orange County, and is reprinted with permission. Sign-up for Byrd Street.
This article deals with the suicide of a young student. If you’re having suicidal thoughts or know someone at risk, you can call or text 988 for help. This is a free, confidential hotline for people in crisis.
How quiet it was at Orange County High School’s Hornet Sports Center on Sunday afternoon. Few words were spoken as hundreds of people, many wearing black, made their way through the lobby.
In silence, they walked past enlarged photos of a smiling boy and then paused to look at mementos of his life. Once they found seats in the gym, they waited, still quiet. Recorded music played in the background. In the center of the gym, there was an eye-catching display: a bright bouquet of flowers, some of the boy’s sports equipment and two photos, one showing him wrestling and another of him curled up beside a large black dog.
The boy, James Austen Keating, had died by suicide nine days earlier on Friday, March 7. He was 12 years old, the son of Joe and Mandy Keating. The family had moved to Orange in 2023, and James enrolled in 5th grade at Orange Elementary School. When he died, he was a 6th grader at Prospect Heights Middle School.
Pastor Kristopher Cook of Calvary Baptist Church in Orange led the memorial service. He began by reading James’s obituary, which described a happy, energetic child with many interests: art, reading, Taekwondo, dirt bike racing, wrestling, track, soccer and pretty much any outdoor activity. “Most weekends would find him either hiking with his mom, fixing things with his dad, jumping on his trampoline, riding bikes or skateboarding, mowing the lawn, or just playing around in the yard or the woods: climbing trees and jumping off of them.”
The service included scripture, prayers and remarks by several of his teachers and coaches. His 5th grade teacher at OES, Dara Maxwell, told the audience that his classmates were drawn to James because he was humorous and quick-witted. She described him as “smart, kind, fun” and able to add “random facts” about topics she was teaching. “All the kids would ask him, ‘How do you know that?’ And he would shrug his shoulders and smile.”
“James made not only teaching fun but life fun”
She said that his gift for sarcasm “was probably my favorite thing about him.” After she began getting to know Mandy Keating, she said with a smile that she understood where the boy got his sense of humor.
Once she met James’s father at a parent-teacher conference and discovered he was a very observant person like his son, Maxwell said that “it became clear that James was a perfect combination of both his mom and dad. See, when James entered a room, he wasn’t loud or drawing attention to himself, but you knew he was there. He was taking everyone in and everything in.”
Later in her comments, Maxwell said her former student “was an incredible person who was going to do something great for this world …. James made not only teaching fun but life fun, and he will forever be in my heart.”
“We have all searched with ‘Why James? Why now?’”
When it was his turn to speak, Orange County’s head wrestling coach, Bryan Seal, described a competitive, promising young wrestler who had placed second in a club championship a year ago and third in a recent middle school conference championship. “As you can tell, James was driven, accomplished and rising as an athlete and all-around young man.” He said that in the boy’s memory, “it is our plan to host next year's annual middle school tournament in James’ honor, making the event the James Keating Memorial and hosting an awareness campaign on suicide.”
Seal recounted how, on the afternoon of her son’s death, Mandy Keating had asked him what she was going to do. “I simply didn’t know what to say,” he told the crowd. “We have all searched with ‘Why James? Why now?’ I’m not sure if any of us will ever figure out the ‘why.’ However, in the past nine days I’ve seen this family and community demonstrate how this affects everyone in this room right now, some more than others, how we take this tragedy … and turn it into something positive. How resilient and open Mandy and Joe have been during this time, how they almost immediately thought of the next kid and how they can do their part, so it does not happen to another family.”
Other speakers at the memorial service included Taylor Jenkins, a Prospect Heights teacher and wrestling coach, who recalled with a quick grin how James had begun his middle school wrestling career intent on putting every opponent in a headlock; Kyle Webber, James’s Taekwondo instructor in Maryland who proudly described how the boy achieved a black belt in the highly demanding martial art; and Jimmy Gebran, a Prospect Heights English teacher and organizer of the school’s trading card club, who remembered how the 6th grader was quiet in class but full of questions during club meetings.
“Many students are desperately crying out for love, affection, someone to talk to”
Austin Horner, a coding and robotics teacher at Prospect Heights, also memorialized James, whom he recalled as “one of the smartest students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.”
Alluding to the sudden death of a boy apparently no one—not his family, friends or teachers—knew was in deep pain, Horner urged everyone present to connect with others in meaningful ways: “One thing I’ve learned as a teacher is that many students are desperately crying out for love, affection, someone to talk to or someone to listen to them, someone that they can trust and share things with that are important to them, someone who recognizes their accomplishments and is proud of them. These things that you and I—and we—are searching for cannot be found in solitude or isolation. They can only be found within relationships.”
Midway through the service, Pastor Cook had planned to read a letter from the Keatings. However, the Keatings decided to stand up and face the audience, while Mandy Keating, her voice strong, read the letter herself. She said, in part, “James was a good human being. He was a good student and an athlete and all that, but most of all, he was a good human being. He was thoughtful. If he got up to make a sandwich, he’d offer to make one for everybody. He liked to make pancakes on the weekends and surprise us with breakfast. Even with missing ingredients, somehow his still tasted better than mine.”
“He never wanted to hurt anybody’s feelings, and that included us”
She described how James would spend hours alone working on his drawings but was sociable, too. He often accompanied her on library excursions and shopping trips. When she would take him to antique shops, she said, “He would patiently listen to my stories of toys or items gone by and impromptu or unsolicited history lessons and reply with ‘Oh, cool.’ Hard to tell if he cared or not, but he never wanted to hurt anybody’s feelings, and that included us. He hugged us every day, sometimes several times. As soon as he came home from school, he would come visit me in my office, sit in my lap if only for a second and we’d talk about the day.”
For those trying to fathom how such a seemingly happy, well-adjusted child could end his own life, she observed, “While he cared deeply about others and was always willing to help a friend or classmate, he didn’t tolerate his own perceived imperfections well at all. A sensitive kid. He felt deeply and internalized any shortcoming.”
She said of James, “He would’ve changed the world, but perhaps the world wasn’t yet ready for kindness, caring and generosity of that magnitude. But I encourage each of you here today, please make a conscious effort, a conscious choice, to be kind even when anger or sarcasm would be easier. Choose empathy and know that everyone has a part of themselves that they keep hidden, and they may need special handling, care and feeding. Choose to walk away from those looking for a fight and stand up for those who need a shield.”
If you’re having suicidal thoughts or know someone at risk, you can call or text 988 for help. This is a free, confidential hotline for people in crisis.
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