WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Ohio family still mourning the loss of their teenage son is lobbying Congress to pass legislation named after him.

“He could make everyone laugh. He included everyone. My social butterfly,” Tara Gray told Spectrum News, tearing up as she described how she wanted her late son to be remembered.

Brycen Gray was 17 when he died by suicide in 2021. His parents believe COVID-19 is to blame.

Brycen was a football player who loved his northeast Ohio high school and never missed a chance to hang with his friends.

Tara said that in April 2021, her son received his second coronavirus vaccine. He soon felt sick, anxious, and out of the blue, struggled with his mental health.

Brycen died by suicide four days after receiving the shot. His mom discovered him after he didn’t answer her calls or texts.

“I went home thinking I was going to take him to the doctor, and I found him deceased in our home,” Tara said.

Tara, a nurse, is convinced her son unknowingly had COVID-19 or the lingering effects of long COVID when he got his second vaccine. She thinks that the combination affected his brain and his overall mental health.

Tara said she’s heard from other families whose loved ones also faced mental health struggles as they battled long COVID.

After her son’s death, Tara took his story to her congressional representative, Ohio Republican Anthony Gonzalez.

“Without question, it was the most difficult conversation I’ve had in my time in Congress,” Gonzalez (OH-16) said in a committee hearing in May.

Gonzalez pledged to make Brycen’s story his top priority before he retires from Congress at the end of the year.

He’s introduced legislation named after Brycen and an Illinois man, Ben Price, who also died by suicide as he fought long COVID. The bill would provide grants to study how COVID affects the brain.

The legislation has bipartisan support in the House and Senate and was voted out of a House committee in May. But Tara and her family, along with the Price family, are coming to Capitol Hill next week to encourage lawmakers to speed up the process.

“Why would we not dedicate funding to do the research to help save others and try to educate everyone on what COVID really can do to the mind?” Tara said.

The topic was also discussed Tuesday during a House hearing focused on long COVID. One doctor explained some data shows the virus may alter the brain, but that the medical community still knows very little about it.

“As a popular song says, that you might have heard a few months ago from your grandkids or children, ‘We don’t talk about Bruno,’ and we don’t talk about the brain with COVID,” said Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Tara said the unanswered questions over what led Brycen to end his life are what’s motivating her to make sure the bill named after her son becomes law.

“I’ll never have the answer, but to try to save someone else, that’s our purpose,” she said.