NASHVILLE — The son of Nashville’s mayor died over the weekend “from an overdose,” Mayor Megan Barry and her husband, Bruce, said in a statement.
Max Barry, 22, died on Saturday evening in Denver, Colorado, his parents said. He died in the Littleton area, a suburb of Denver, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office told CNN.
“Early this morning, we received news that no parents should ever have to hear. Our son Max suffered from an overdose and passed away,” they said Sunday.
“We cannot begin to describe the pain and heartbreak that comes with losing our only child. Our son was a kind soul full of life and love for his family and friends.”
An autopsy has been completed, but the results will not be available for several weeks, the coroner’s office said.
Barry graduated in June from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. He attended Eakin Elementary School, West End Middle School, and MLK High School in Nashville before attending and graduating from University School of Nashville.
“Everything Max did was outsized. He was an enormous personality. You knew when he walked into a room that he was there. He was funny,” said Dean Masullo, Max’s former adviser at the University School, according to CNN affiliate WKRN.
“He had a great sense of humor that he clearly got from his dad. He was smart, he was personable, he was empathetic, he cared deeply about his friends and his family and he loved his school and all of the people in his life,”
A visitation will be held at the Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts at the Blair School of Music in Nashville, from 5 to 8 p.m. on Monday. A memorial will be held at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, starting at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
“Our family would greatly appreciate your thoughts and prayers, and would respectfully ask for privacy as we mourn the loss of our child and begin to understand a world without his laughter and love in our lives,” the Barry family said in the statement.
Condolences poured in from a range of people, former classmates and teachers and political figures, such as New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and US Rep. Jim Cooper.
Messages of condolence can be sent to megan.barry@nashville.gov or to the Office of Mayor Megan Barry, 1 Public Square, Nashville, Tennessee 37201. Contributions in his memory can be made to the Oasis Center or Nashville Humane Association.
