It's a tragedy health experts say has reached epidemic proportions, adolescents making the decision to take their own lives. The parent of a UNO student who committed suicide last week shares his story.

It’s a decision by one person that leaves so much damage and a wound that may never heal. Herb Christensen of Elk Horn, Iowa never thought anything could hurt this much.

"I didn't think I could go into his apartment, I didn't think I could see him,” he said clutching his son’s jacket, clinging to his son’s memory.

“He was our pride and joy. We have seven children, never bronzed any shoes, but when he came we bronzed his shoes.”

Last Friday, the unthinkable happened. Jacob ws found dead in a mall parking garage on 72nd and Dodge, an apparent suicide.

His father said the 23-year-old seemed to be headed in the right direction. He was on scholarship at UNO, loved his family and his family loved him. "Our boys tell us they love us, when we talk to 'em the final thing we say is 'I love you' and they say it back,” said Herb.

Jacob's departure leaves a family wrapped in a web of emotions: grief, anger, confusion. They never saw this coming.

"There was something we don't know that was going on,” said Herb. “We talked to them all the time and I don't understand how you can talk to your flesh and blood and not have an idea.”

It's a story all too familiar to Nebraska Medical Center psychiatrist Dr. Carl Greiner. “Everything is clear when you look backwards, it isn't when you're going forwards so I think the family trying to deal with an issue they may never have seen anything that would let them know."

Christensen believes his son made a split-second decision, a permanent solution for what was a temporary problem. "They get into a frame of mind and there's no chance to change that frame of mind and there's no do-overs."

Now the family looks to hold on. "You may know your children, you may love your children and they may be telling you everything about relationships and things. This boy did that to us, there was nothing we couldn't talk about, but something, something was there.”

A service for Jacob Christensen will be held this Saturday on what would have been his 24th birthday. More than 200 people are expected to attend.