Suicide: Coming into the light

Then, for the last time, he pulled out of the family driveway and drove away from the only home he’d ever known.

His final destination was the entrance to the Falls Country Club where his parents say he knew his car would be found. There, on Nov. 12, 1991, Erik Rasmussen took his budding life into his hands, and ended it.

Borderland’s New Year’s baby of 1973 grew to be an attractive, raven-haired boy — bright, talented and seemingly engaged with his peers and his community. He was raised alongside his brother Matt, by parents Allen and Gail Rasmussen of the Falls.

Erik is remembered as a determined child who often shielded his shy little brother. The boys had a traditional Borderland childhood — hitting pucks in the local rinks, enjoying camaraderie at the hunting shack and on Rainy Lake, and involved in the traditions of the local schools. Comedic and intense, Erik took a shine to sports, music and theater.

As he began his first semester at the local community college, there was little clue that Erik’s internal dialogue had irrevocably crossed over into another realm.

Eighteen years later, the wounds left by their oldest son’s suicide are easily opened. But with all the torment that comes with the scrutiny, life-long educators Gail and Allen Rasmussen earnestly discuss a topic that is slowly beginning to lose some of its stigma and its social insulation.

In addition, the distinguished work of their surviving, adult son Matt is also bringing suicide out of the darkness — in extraordinary ways.

Recently, Matt’s poignant writing talents found him named one of only 15 Bush Artist Fellows for 2009. The poet has been awarded an unrestricted $50,000 fellowship grant toward his professional development.

The suicide of his only sibling changed him in powerful ways, Matt told The Journal, and it dwells in his poetry — both literally and figuratively. It’s not the only topic of his creative works, but the poems which are suicide-inhabited are brutally authentic with Matt’s own unique tangle of pathos and humor.

He now shares some of that poetry with his hometown.

While the word itself is often spoken in guarded tones, a macabre curiosity remains connected to the cloaked act of suicide. Survivors, however, have experienced its darkest corners beyond imagining.

Once most prevalent among the elderly, suicide is now the second-leading cause of death for ages 15 to 34. Teenagers who do it have been described as choosing a “permanent solution for temporary problems.” The history of some teens indicates their struggle — but the families of others are utterly blind-sided.

Allen remembers his sons as having a normal childhood, noting the differences in their personalities: Matt, quiet and gentle; Erik, gregarious and emotionally mercurial. He said it was Erik’s nature to react impulsively in what was sometimes the volatile landscape of his life.

While they didn’t see their son as religious, Erik’s last days do suggest a spiritual longing. Gail recalls that he was intrigued by the movie “Flatliners,” the story of students who dangerously seek to cross the line between life and death in an attempt to learn more about the afterlife. This knowledge prompted a grief therapist to remark, “He thought he would be back.”

But as in most suicides, what remains tenaciously are the forever-unanswered questions by the ones who are left behind — those who will spend a lifetime trying to fit the pieces of an agonizing puzzle.

“It was his choice,” said Allen, who admits going through periods of anger toward his son. “It may not have been the right choice for me, or for the family, but it was his choice.”

Studies indicate that perhaps the most profound human grief occurs when a parent outlives a child.

Coping with Erik’s suicide meant occupying his mind and getting back to work, Allen said. “And Matt went right back to school,” he added.

“I went right back to bed,” said Gail.

********************

Learning to live with Erik’s decision

Mother

The shock of the news that November day locked Gail Rasmussen behind closed doors in a tortured, relentless nightmare. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t get out of bed.

Her tears flow openly and steadily during the interview about her son’s suicide. The memory of her own existence during that period is seemingly surreal. But Gail searches valiantly inside herself for honest answers and meaningful information for anyone who has lost a child, and for anyone who’s been affected by suicide.

Deciding to discuss Erik’s death meant going through a storage chest of his personal things, wrenching the womb-strings that a mother feels so intimately.

Her baby, her toddler — her awkward adolescent and bold teenager — now remains forever in that context. Would people remember how wonderful he was?

Tragedy was not a stranger in Gail’s life. She lost her entire family in a 1957 car accident when she was just 13. Sent to live on a relative’s farm, she said moving forward like nothing had happened was the way grief was handled in those days.

Now a strong advocate of utilizing grief therapy, she believes it is imperative in coping with suicide. “Go alone, and go together,” Gail advises families, emphasizing that people all grieve differently.

She was angry with her God in the aftermath of Erik’s death. She recalls a church member innocently suggesting that “We pray.”

“Pray?! What the hell are we going to pray for after what He’s done?” she remembers thinking.

She said local professionals inside and outside the area helped her, most often in a preferred one-on-one therapy. For those grieving a death, she recommends, “When you can — go out. Even though you’re scared to go out there and talk about it, you do feel better after.”

Following the Christmas recess, Gail returned to her teaching job at Holler School, where, she said, “My friends saved my life.”

Brother

While Erik’s brother Matt Rasmussen points out that every suicide is unique, he believes all survivors are haunted by a continual second-guessing that complicates the stages of their grief.

“If only I could have said something or reached out to him,” are thoughts he says plague survivors. They struggle to learn to be OK with not knowing, he said, which is perhaps the most difficult, if not impossible thing to do.

Friends speculated on the reasons for Erik’s depression. In hindsight, Matt says the hunches might be significant, but certainly none of it seemed suicidal. As with many teenage suicides, the revelation of this voiceless suffering is one of the most heartbreaking.

“It seemed so unlike him. ... The shock of it was difficult to deal with not only because it was so unexpected, but also because it made apparent the pain that he was going through but hiding from everybody. All of a sudden he was dead, but he was also no longer the happy, funny person we thought we knew. Something was secretly tearing him up and none of us saw it.

“This is both extremely saddening and frightening,” said Matt, noting that everyone has “an inner life” known only to themselves. “We wonder: How many others are hiding their pain?”

While conversation about his brother’s irreversible decision to kill himself is never easy, Matt’s experiences have indicated that others are also reticent to bring up the suicide, even though it might help healing. “They (people) never ask,” he said. “They assume you don’t want to talk about it.”

Matt said that the requirements of being a hockey goaltender helped him to concentrate his energies after his brother’s death. “It helped me learn how to focus my emotions and thoughts rather than feeling as though I was at their whimsy,” a sabotage he found could occur at traumatic times. At school, he recalls feeling like “the guy whose brother shot himself.”

Matt said that an inevitable betrayal is initially felt by those close to a suicide. But for himself, he concluded that feeling betrayed led to anger which was nonproductive and felt selfish.

“Erik was suffering and he couldn’t reach out to anyone,” Matt said. “... if he betrayed us, then we also betrayed him.”

Father

“My therapy was work,” said Allen Rasmussen, who holds a counseling degree himself.

He said that getting past the devastation meant facing the feelings, adding that his own training helped but only in one dimension.

“It’s hard to help yourself (as a counselor),” Allen said, “because we don’t operate on theories, we operate on feelings.” He could tell himself that guilt is worthless emotion, but feeling it was inescapable.

Allen said that there’s no way around the soul searching that the life-altering and horrific injury of losing a child demands. And the version of loneliness caused inherently from a death by choice, is unique.

“It would have been easier if he had died some other way,” he supposes, his face stoic but showing the strains of holding back his pain.

He cautions those who are sympathetic from using the statement “I know how you feel” in the case of suicide, unless those words are really true. “Friends want to help you so badly... ,” he said, his voice now muted and fractured. But he added that the presence of those who care and their willingness to listen is invaluable.

Looking back at the haze, the couple remembers how vulnerable they felt concerning their surviving son. Allen said Matt was likely afraid to show a lot of emotion to his broken parents, and probably received more comfort from his friends and the community. And, the father admits, he was conceivably accurate in that assessment at the time.

Today, Erik’s death and its details belong more to the past. What endures are his living years.

********************

Celebrating Erik

Gail and Allen Rasmussen have served their community in a myriad of ways, with dedication and longevity. They have over 75 collective years of educating in the Falls — Gail with 38 years as a first grade teacher, and Allen in every local school echelon from seventh grade teacher to president of Rainy River Community College.

The couple expressed over and over that the love from their community sustained them in the blackest nights of their souls. “If you’re going to have a crisis, do it in this town,” Gail said, her face now swollen. “People were so kind,” said Allen, remembering.

Long after surviving the tormented nights and the living hell of losing a child — they know the ache will never really leave. But they have made peace with Erik’s decision.

Gail ultimately took the advice that came right from Erik in his final message. “Just think of me as in a better place right now,” her son wrote, knowing he would be gone by the time those words were read. “And don’t feel sorry for me.”

Though unanswered questions still remain nearly two decades after Erik’s death, the family has survived the guilt and the speculation that persist. They have learned to live, and live joyfully, in spite of the unknowns.

The Rasmussens are proof that a family can flourish following suicide. And Matt’s successes have made his parents immensely proud.

So together they will celebrate the life of Erik Britten Rasmussen — as they believe all those who are loved — should be celebrated.

********************

OUTGOING, By Matt Rasmussen

Our answering machine still played your message

and on the day you died Dad asked me to replace it.

I was chosen to save us the shame of dead you

answering calls. Hello, I have just shot myself.

To leave a message for me, call hell. The clear cassette

lay inside the white machine like a tiny patient

being monitored or a miniature glass briefcase

protecting the scroll of lost voices. Everything barely

mattered and then no longer did. I touched record

and laid my voice over yours, muting it forever

and even now. I’m sorry we are not here, I began.

Originally published in: Water~Stone Review. Vol 12. 2009

********************

AFTER SUICIDE

A hole is nothing

but what remains around it.

My brother stood

in the refrigerator light

drinking milk that poured

out of his head

through thick black curls,

down his back into a puddle

growing larger around him.

My body stood between

living room and kitchen,

one foot on worn carpet,

one on cold linoleum.

He couldn’t hear his name

clouding from my mouth,

settling in the fluorescent air.

I wanted to put my finger

into the hole,

feel the smooth channel

he escaped through,

stop the milk

so he could taste it,

but my body held

as if driven into place.

The milk on the floor

reflected the light,

then became it.

Floated upward and outward

filling every shadow,

blowing the dark open.

Originally published as “Dream After Suicide” in: Oyez Review. Vol. 32, Fall 2004.

********************

REVERSE SUICIDE, By Matt Rasmussen

The guy Dad sold your car to

comes back to get his money,

leaves the car. With filthy rags

we rub it down until it doesn’t shine

and wipe your blood into

the seams of the seat.

Each snowflake stirs before

lifting into the sky as I

learn you won’t be dead.

The unsuffering ends

when the mess of your head

pulls together around

a bullet in your mouth.

You spit it into Dad’s gun

before arriving in the driveway

while the evening brightens

and we pour bag after bag

of leaves on the lawn,

waiting for them to leap

onto the bare branches.

Originally published in: Passages North. Winter/Spring 2007: Vol. 28, #1.

********************

AFTER SUICIDE

I found a small ring

of your black hair

in the shower.

It could have been

worn like a laurel

by a mole

or hung like a wreathe

on death’s tiny door.

Originally published in: MARGIE. Volume 7. 2008.

AFTER SUICIDE, By Matt Rasmussen

I planted a light bulb

in the garden and a flower

of the most delicate darkness

bloomed downward,

toward you. Grief comes

like patient lava

I always easily outrun

while our past becomes blank

as an empty parking lot.

You have been dead half

of my life, and yet you sit

at the kitchen table

in my current apartment

with a prescription bottle

full of bullets, reading

the directions aloud:

Do not take on an empty mind.

Take one every 19 years.

Side effects may include …

You look up at me

and rub your eyes,

but I am not there.

Originally published in: MARGIE. Volume 7. 2008.

********************

Matt Rasmussen: The Writer

Poet Matt Rasmussen believes that nearly everyone has been affected by a suicide. He was in high school when his brother Erik took his own life.

He points out that suicide and its impact are experienced quite differently in various cultures. He believes that the shrouding of the subject in America is due somewhat to religious and moral influences. While early American social mores indict the act as a sin and shameful, some countries view it quite the opposite.

Suicide didn’t directly inhabit Matt’s earliest poetry but began to emerge in his graduate school poems as he continued to process the grief of his brother’s death. He doesn’t view the work as “a road map for coping with suicide” or as a summation of what it does to people.

Matt says that some of his poems are an exploration of unspoken suicides “as they seem to haunt a small town and how we overcome them or simply just bury them and move on ...”

His suicide poems convey a mixture of grief and humor — creating “the moments when we don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Visual imagery and the natural world figure largely in his writing, and he finds his poetry “akin to painting in a way.” He attributes this to growing up in Borderland where he spent so much time outdoors.

He credits his International Falls teachers Art Przybilla, James Lacher, Linda Faith, Dick Ostroot, Darrell Schmidt and Doug Blumhart with impacting the development of his gift.

His recent award of a Bush Fellowship is a highly competitive honor from one of the largest artist grants in the U.S., intended to foster the careers of artists whose work is expected to have a profound effect on the greater communities of their region.

Under the grant, Matt hopes to complete his first full-length collection of poetry among other endeavors during a two-year plan.

Substantially published and awarded, the poet lives in Robbinsdale, Minn with wife Jana (Hanson) Rasmussen, who is lovingly supportive of her husband’s gift, says Matt’s family. Matt is also a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, of which he is an alumnus. He earned his master of fine arts degree at Emerson College in Boston. The author also spent two years in the Peace Corps.

Matt was recently accepted for a retreat at Yaddo, the prestigious artists' community in Saratoga Springs, New York. Other Yaddo alumni include American artists James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, John Cheever, Aaron Copland, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor and many others.

He is drawn to the poets who wrote about suicide, he says, many who eventually committed it themselves — among them Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Hart Crane, John Berryman and Ted Hughes.

He cites viewing the documentary “The Bridge,” acclaimed as a brutally honest, disquieting and indelible film about 26 actual suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge, as a valuable experience.