The deepest hurt

After a devastating loss, music helped Larah Helayne deal with the brokenness inside.

Larah Helayne lost both of her parents by the age of 13. “I always just tell people that it’s like I was born into chaos and then it just progressively got worse,” she says. Following her mother’s death and suicidal thoughts, she started songwriting as a way to come to terms with feelings that she wasn’t able to express with words. Now a 16-year-old high school junior, she hopes to use her music to claim power over her story.