"my road map for the rest of my life"

8 January 2020: “My wife captured it perfectly: She said that there is so much pain and so much love, and it’s all mixed together,” he said. “But every day we’re able to disentangle them more, so that we can experience the love more purely and the pain more purely, and it doesn’t hurt to love him.” --Jamie Raskin, quoting his wife, talking about grieving their son, in this Atlantic piece.

I have been thinking a lot about Raskin and his family ever since his son Tommy took his own life. The family's heartbreaking tribute to Tommy made me cry and cry. They buried Tommy on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Raskin went back to work. He and his family then endured a siege by insurrectionists. The next day, he started working on much-needed articles of impeachment.

He hasn't had a chance to stop, really. Maybe that's good? Work can be healing, motivating. But there's so much pain out there. So much to do. I just feel for them all, these people I have never met, who lost their dear boy to the same sort of struggles that take so many. 

The Raskins included their son's final note in his tribute: "Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.” As I type this, I am crying again. 

The Atlantic piece talks about the note: "I told him that it was notable to include the reality of Tommy’s mental illness in the tribute essay, including the message from his suicide note. 'Why would we suppress that?' Raskin asked. 'I want to live by that note. That is my road map for the rest of my life.' He said Americans need to use society’s resources to work toward a cure for depression. 'But in the meantime,' he said, 'we obviously have to bring it out of the shadows.'"

God bless this family, role models for so many of us in these dark days.