Suicide is Not Painless
It has been in the national news, 2 instances of Palo Alto's Gunn H.S. students committing suicide by stepping in front of a speeding train. And then, just a day after the second one, a third kid tries, but is thwarted by his mother and a passing motorist. The police started sending a car to stand guard by the tracks after the last incident. They were there at least until the end of the school year, I'm not sure if they remain. I think everyone is relieved its summer.
What's going on at Gunn? Everyone is asking. Gunn is a big school and it is very competitive and filled with high achievers. But so are thousands of other high schools in the area and across the country. I have two kids that will be seniors next year, and another one that graduated from Gunn three years ago. For the oldest, his high school story was dominated by athletics, for the ones going now, its all about theatre, performing for one, working backstage for the other. They both have a lot of homework and have to work hard for their grades, but I don't think Gunn is an unusual pressure cooker. And I don't think the 2nd suicide was any kind of copycat of the first, although that third attempt might have been.
I don't know that much about JP Blanchard, the kid who died in early May. I did know him a little when the kids were in middle school. He lived on the block behind us, and was occasionally over to play. It was my daughter he was friendly with, but they drifted apart. They were friendly enough to greet each other, and she knew who his friends and girlfriend were, but not much else. He sat behind my son in English class this year. My daughter was shocked because he was popular, as if only loners kill themselves. He also had a close-knit family. The whole thing was sad, but the impact was fairly short-lived.
Sonia Raymakers was a whole other story. She's the one who died during finals week. Sonya was a senior headed to study costume design at NYU. Because she was part of the theatre community at school, both kids were friends with her, but she was very close to my son. She basically ran the costume department for the Gunn Theatre department, and took on many other "behind-the-scene" jobs like set and prop construction and publicity. Plus some directing and stage managing. Sonya was also a dedicated activist, recruiting friends to join Amnesty International with her, and setting up a web site to discourage the sale and consumption of what she called "slave chocolate".
I was at Gunn the day we all found out what happened. There was supposed to be a "Thespian Banquet" I was helping out with that evening. Instead, it turned into a 3 hour impromptu theatre memorial for Sonya.(my son is the only boy in this picture)I sat there as the kids and teachers told stories, read poems and sang songs. My son got up and talked about the dreaded fishing hat that was part of his costume for the fall show. He hated it, the hooks kept get caught on other people and stuck him too. He fought Sonya tooth and nail over that, and the other kids remembered with laughter. Now, he loves it.
The main impression I got sitting there that night was that this was an incredibly smart, extremely competent and very involved young girl who had accomplished so much and had a very promising future. She did leave a note, but the family is not sharing the content, so we'll never know. Her death dominated all of our lives that week with gatherings, the funeral and sitting shiva with her family. Gunn essentially cancelled finals, giving the kids the option to take them, but the results would only count if they improved their grade. I know my son is sad, but he's not yet been willing to talk about it with me. Even when we took the train to San Francisco, a 40 minute ride, he became monosyllabatic when I broached the subject. One of our fellow SV Mombloggers, who does grief counseling, asked me if he was leaving home this summer, because she's seen so many delayed reactions. He will be in New York City for 5 weeks, but several of his friends will be there at the same time including 2 who were even closer to Sonya then he was, so I think he'll be ok. Of course we'll be in close contact.
And then there was this Saturday night at our house, about a week after JP died. My 13 daughter had been out with friends and downed a couple of caffeinated drinks after seeing a show, so she couldn't sleep. The rest of us are all out cold, so she wanders out of her room, finds a laptop, logs on to Facebook. She's chatting with a few friends, including one kid in her class that she doesn't know all that well. They get into some kind of side discussion, then an argument. He begins to get morose and then tells her he's going to go hang himself. My daughter totally freaks out and wakes me up. Despite the hour and the fact I didn't know them, I called them on the phone. At first they also thought their child was asleep and then, that he was joking. But they confronted him, he was fine, he was joking and boy does he ever now know this is not something to kid about. They called back the next day to thank us for taking action, but who wouldn't?
What's the lesson here? I think the answer for parents is to keep their eyes open, keep talking and be as vigilant as the mother who ran after her son and stopped him. The kids know now to be hyper-aware with their friends and acquaintances, and tell an adult if they see or hear or even just feel like someone may be thinking about suicide. These train track suicides are easy, no drugs or weapons to plan for, so they can be impetuos as well. I personally had only met Sonya a few times, briefly and I can't even shake the sadness which is of course nothing compared to what the Raymakers are going through.
This is an original Silicon Valley Mom's Blog Post. Martha is surrounded by teenagers and hopes they don't try to get away with the kinds of things she did at their age.
