Male Citizen of the Year: Derek Grant finds a purpose in helping others

For more than 16 years after he survived being shot 11 times while shopping with his then-girlfriend in Chicago, Derek Grant walked this earth trying to find his purpose in life.

At the age of 17, he was a victim of street violence.

Chicago police told him it was unprovoked. Just random. Maybe a gang initiation.

From the time of the shooting in 2002 to his attempted suicide in 2018, already a quiet, reserved person, Grant became angry and drew himself even more inward.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had a lot to do with that.

His mother saw the change.

“I think I started to become somebody she didn’t recognize, lashing out at people with anger,” Grant said. “I was angry a lot, which got me in trouble, which got me on the wrong side of the law, in a lot of cases, hanging with the wrong people.”

Grant found himself in jail and at odds with family and friends.

All of this built up to the suicide attempt.

An attempt that turned him around. He now advocates for those who struggle with mental health.

He has started a new organization, Cultivating Our Purpose Everyday (COPE) to help those who have had trouble with the law and those who are teetering on going down that path.

For his efforts, the 40-year-old Grant was selected as the Daily Journal’s Male Citizen of the Year.

One of the people who nominated Grant was JaHana Holloway.

“Derek is deserving of this nomination because he is an activist in the Kankakee community and he leads by example. Giving others hope and strength along their own journey,” Holloway said in her nomination.

SURVIVOR’S GUILT

When he was recovering in the hospital from the shooting, Grant said he heard of another shooting victim.

The teen was brought in the day prior to Grant being shot. The teen was shot once in the chest. He died.

That episode gnawed at Grant as he tried making sense of his own purpose.

“I felt like my life didn’t mean anything; that God, you kept the wrong person alive, that you should have kept the kid that got shot before me alive,” Grant recalled.

“Maybe he would have made something better of his life? Maybe he would have been a better citizen? Maybe he would have been a better brother? Maybe he would have been a better husband? At the time, I got married, and I was a horrible husband because I couldn’t deal with myself, so I took anger and frustration out on my wife.”

They divorced.

Recovering from the suicide attempt, it was Grant’s surgeon who flipped the switch changing Grant’s view of his life in this world.

“The doctor came and asked me, ‘Did I want to live?’ My first answer to him was like, I shook my head ‘no,’ of course and I’m crying,” Grant said. “I’m just like, no, I realized what I had done and where I’m at, and realized that I didn’t succeed at what I was trying to do, and that was, take my life because I woke up alive.”

A STORY

The doctor said he would come back after the nurse removed the tube in his throat that helped him breathe.

The doctor said he had a story he wanted to share.

The doctor wanted Grant to know what efforts were made to save him and what they had learned about him.

The doctor first explained to Grant further testing indicated he suffered from Hashimoto hypothyroidism, an autoimmune disorder that causes the thyroid gland to become inflamed and destroyed, leading to hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroidism is an underactive thyroid that occurs when the thyroid can’t produce enough thyroid hormone.

The doctor explained the levels were very low. The doctor said Grant had this condition for a long time. The condition affects a person’s mental health.

The doctor then asked Grant about the numerous scars he saw when they were resuscitating him one of two times.

The surgeon asked Grant to “enlighten me on that.” Grant did.

“I have questions about that, the doctor said. He said he found out about it. He said, ‘So here’s the thing. I’ve seen a lot of people on my table, but I’ve never seen anybody like you,’” Grant said.

His caregiver said the more he could know about him, the more he could help.

He then added:

“It seems like every time that you would code, it was as if something more was trying to take your life; that it was something more at hand,” he explained.

Recalling the conversation, Grant said the doctor then made a profound statement.

The doctor explained that though Grant wanted to take his own life, his life was not his to take.

“… That changed my life,” he said. “I told him, ‘Doctor, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for somebody to tell me. Wow, my life means something.’”

No one, Grant said, has ever told God is here for him, that God has a play for him.

“I didn’t realize that, you know, and I said, ‘Thank you.’ So all I wanted to hear was that my life meant something to somebody, yeah, it meant something to the world,” Grant said.

STORYTELLER

Since 2020, Grant has told his story to many people.

Grant knows talking about mental health is not a subject most want to discuss.

Grant sees it as an opportunity to help others avoid the same poor choices he made when he was in his late 20s.

He became a suicide prevention advocate.

He has spoken about mental health with the local Man Up! outreach organization. He stresses to young people they are not alone with their struggles.

“I tell them ‘Hey, I’m a survivor.’ I want to do whatever I can to help people,” Grant said.

Since 2019, Grant has been with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Grant is chair of the Kankakee County Out of the Darkness Walk. The organization connects those affected by suicide, promotes awareness and raises funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

CREATING COPE

Last spring, Grant formed COPE, a not-for-profit organization offering reentry services to men and women.

Grant is the founder and executive director.

COPE is raising funding. Go to

https://www.zeffy.com/fundraising/donate-to-make-a-difference-with-reentry.

You can also get more information about COPE: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559643823558

The name of the organization comes from Grant’s life everyday.

Currently, Grant is securing funding and support such as from the Kankakee County State’s Attorney’s office.

Grant said he wants to get probation officials involved as well with the “cultivating” or mentoring program.

“There are stipulations to the program. Not every person can enter,” Grant said.

It is a 12-step program much like in other support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

“These are 12 steps that I’ve come up with for myself when I was transforming myself that I realized that it took for me to get to where I am. So I put that into COPE,” Grant said.

For a client to be a part of COPE, they would have to take the 12-step program. They will be set with what is called a cultivator, similar to a mentor.

“We want to help people achieve,” he said. “Know they can survive.”

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