"Love Never Dies" Memorial Quilt

The “Love Never Dies” quilt project began shortly after the Suicide Prevention Awareness Network (SPAN USA) 10th annual National Awareness Event in Washington, DC. Delegates from the Network noted that Tennessee was one of the few states represented that did not have an official statewide survivor’s quilt. While local survivors’ groups across the state had quilts of their own, there was no quilt project that effectively represented all survivors across the state.

Such a quilt was deemed necessary to personalize the phenomenon of suicide, demonstrating to the community at large that suicide is not some abstract social phenomenon, but a legitimate public health crisis that affects many people within a given community.

The Network resolved to develop statewide quilts for use at local and national public awareness events and formed the Quilt Committee to handle all aspects of the quilt project, including recruitment of survivors for participation, logistics and design, handling submitted panels, and assembly of the quilts themselves.

The first of the Tennessee Memory quilts made its official debut at the Suicide Prevention Awareness Day observance at the State Capitol on September 13, 2006. Two others debuted during TSPN’s Suicide Prevention Awards Dinner and Symposium on September 18, 2008, and each subsequent year has seen the dedication of at least one more quilt.

Additionally, another quilt was developed in 2011 by the Left Behind By Suicide support group out of Centerville, in coordination with the Hickman-Perry County Suicide Prevention Task Force. TSPN has been granted ownership of a quilt from the Crisis Intervention Center (now part of Family and Children’s Services), assembled by a suicide support group operating out of the Crisis Intervention Center in the 1990s.

The “Love Never Dies” Quilts are an ongoing project of TSPN, and its Quilt Committee will be accepting submissions indefinitely. For a full listing of persons memorialized on the current quilts, click here.