Aiya Simone Capps

Aiya Simone Capps was born on Monday, April 29, 2002, into an Earth lifetime filled with remarkable people and extraordinary experiences. On Monday, March 25, 2024, Aiya left this Earth lifetime via suicide. A mother never expects to write her child’s obituary and writing Aiya’s has taken me nearly a year. I still do not know what to say about this incredible loss to me and my family, to Aiya’s friends, her coworkers, acquaintances, and all the children and animals she loved. Please know that Aiya cherished all of you deeply. Though we may never understand her final actions on Earth, Aiya leaves us with nearly 22 years of beautiful memories and inspiration that will live on in every life she touched.

Aiya leaves behind her mother, Kristen Hubbard, her father, Isaac Capps (Sayeh), maternal grandparents David and Janice Hubbard, as well as numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, all of whom will miss her dearly. She was preceded in death by her paternal grandparents, Carolyn Drake (Doc) and Frank Shumaker, and her dearly loved cousin, Vivian Abigail Shaw.

I want this tribute to Aiya to be a love letter to everyone still here. I want to encourage you to keep going even when everything seems insurmountable, to remind you that your brain can play tricks on you. I want to help you recall that you can choose to be gentle with yourself and your loved ones–with strangers even, and for you–for all of us–to know that what we see and hear out in the world is never the whole story.

I want everyone who loves Aiya to remember that even though this life brings great pain and suffering, it also brings great joy, immense beauty, and deep love. I want everyone who loves Aiya to remember her incredible sense of humor, her infectious laugh, her courageous spirit, her curiosity and creativity, and the way she could make anyone feel comfortable, even strangers, and how she would go out of her way to do precisely that.

Remember that Aiya was an amazing gift giver and would pour her heart into finding or creating a present as unique as its receiver. If you are lucky enough to remember Aiya’s cookies, remember how happy she was to share them with you, everyone she worked with, all our neighbors, and even the auto maintenance shop when she paid for her car repairs.

Remember, too, Aiya’s clever wit and willingness to be silly and joyful. The corner of her mouth would draw back and a small smile would spread as she delivered a witty comment you never saw coming. She was the best at naming animals as well as inanimate objects, like her beloved dog, Giovanni, or our kitchen knives, Tiny and Sharktooth.

Remember Aiya’s ability to think critically and form her own opinions. At a very young age, she began to say things that made me think differently, and with her death I find myself in perpetual reflection. Even as her death feels like the darkest of dark clouds, my gratitude to have been part of Aiya’s life is the absolute brightest of silver linings.

Aiya was a beautiful person, inside and out, and yet she struggled with something that haunted her enough to want to end her pain forever. She sought help in the form of therapy and medication. She grew frustrated with the broken system of mental health care in our society. She no longer believed that the system could offer her any true relief. More and more Aiya’s death feels like a terrible accident, an action based on false information due to unbalanced brain chemistry.

Aiya was not a coward. In fact, she may be the bravest person I have ever known. She confronted and lived through challenges that most people will never face, surviving an intensive cancer treatment as a teenager while keeping up with her schoolwork to graduate with honors from the prestigious and notoriously difficult Hume Fogg Academy.

Aiya was exceptionally smart and a very hard worker. Driven to earn her own money, she began working in restaurants as soon as she was legally able to work. During the pandemic she continued to work in the service industry, sharing her unique brand of sunshine with everyone she encountered. Aiya attended the University of Tennessee -Knoxville on a full academic scholarship. She completed two-and-a-half years of study in biology before coming home, overwhelmed with the pressures of a college culture that just assumed everyone would go back to “normal” after beginning their college careers during an unparalleled global catastrophe.

Aiya’s curiosity and enthusiasm for life was infectious. She was so excited to turn 18, old enough to go skydiving, and she convinced me and a wary cousin to join her for the thrill of a lifetime. Her sense of adventure took her all over the world, from parasailing in Greece to snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands. Aiya’s favorite travel destination was anywhere with a beach. She took time to talk to strangers while traveling, making people feel special and heard. Around the world dogs and cats fell in love with her persistent charm.

Aiya had an immense capacity for kindness. So vast, it taught me through her actions to be more patient and loving with others. She had huge empathy for people in all situations, enhanced through her volunteer experience tutoring peers who came to this country as refugees. She often said that hearing these students’ stories helped her understand how fortunate she really was. Aiya did not judge people based on their external appearance, religious preference, economic standing, pronouns, or choice of partner. She was in no way a saint, but she was indeed authentically and unapologetically Aiya. And in being Aiya, she embodied so much of what this world could use more of–kindness, humor, authenticity, honesty, generosity, and openness.

My hope is that anyone reading this will keep Aiya’s spirit alive through their own actions. My hope is that we won’t lose more and more of our beautiful loved ones to these terrible demons, demons that tell them there is no hope, that no one is listening, that their pain is just a burden to those who love them. My hope is that through our actions and telling the truth through our stories, we will recognize ourselves in each other, and so then feel less alone, ashamed, and fearful. I hope that our finding this common ground will lead us to build a better society, where effective and compassionate support for mental health is normalized and attainable, where everyone is welcome just as they are, where kindness and compassion are prized above all else. I can’t speak for Aiya, but I’m confident that this would be her hope for all of us–to be a force of goodness in the world. Let’s fill this life we share with beauty and love and compassion to support ourselves and others during the hard times. Let’s plant flowers and make music and paint paintings and write poems and bake cookies and dance and watch sunsets and hug dogs and volunteer and pick up trash and be there for each other, even when we are afraid. Especially when we are afraid. Let’s teach ourselves and our children the importance of just being there for each other, the sacredness of just listening without giving advice, and when they don’t know what to say, let’s teach them to say, “You are important to me, and I am here with you.”

If you would like to make a donation in Aiya’s memory, please consider the Surfrider Foundation (https://www.surfrider.org/?form=memorial).