'You learn to live with the pain'

Gilbert Eaton was a school principal. His wife, Grace, a special education teacher. They had two teenage boys, Glen and Eddie Gilchrist, sons from Grace Eaton's first marriage. Their days were filled with the ordinary routines of work, school, sports and family gatherings.

The Eatons arrived at their Farmington home to find their oldest son dead and a suicide note that said: "Please don't be angry with me."

A house that had been filled with the raucous laughter of two brothers who wrestled one another and shot hoops in the driveway grew terribly quiet and achingly empty.

"I'm sorry I let you down," Glen wrote in the note he left behind on Dec. 13, 1997.

He was 17, a senior at Mt. Blue High School, an honor roll student and one of the top skiers and cross-country runners in the state. He was the kind of kid who always wanted to ski faster, run longer, achieve bigger and better things.

"He was a go-getter," Grace Eaton says of her son. "If he came in 10th in a running meet, he told himself he should have placed second or third. He was always wanting to be better than he was."

Since their son's suicide seven years ago, the Eatons have struggled to bring hope and meaning to a life cut short. Their determination has meant tireless work to learn about suicide and its risks and to educate the many students and families the Eatons influence in their careers as educators.

It also has involved self-forgiveness and figuring out how to move past their grief.

Each year there are more than 30,000 suicides nationally. Last year in Maine there were 137 suicides, 15 of those were people 25 and younger.

For every suicide, there are dozens of survivors who grapple with one of life's most agonizing losses.

The family members left behind face a bundle of emotions: shame, guilt and the eternal unanswered question, "Why?"

"Families feel disgraced; their neighbors often look at them like they've done something wrong," says Ann Haas, who lives in Camden and is research director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

"People know how to express their sorrow for other kinds of deaths, but they don't react the same way with suicide. They avoid families, suicide survivors, because it's too awkward. We don't yet know how to talk about suicide," Haas says.

In the year before Glen took his life, his family noticed he'd become more agitated and had started smoking marijuana. He'd been caught twice before and had to sit on the sidelines during his high school track season.

Despite warnings and substance abuse counseling, Glen continued to smoke pot. When his parents found out, they reminded him he broke his school athletic contract not to abuse drugs or drink alcohol. As a result, he could no longer take part in his favorite high school sport - skiing.

The Saturday that his parents planned to take Glen to talk with his ski coach about his transgression, he waited at home while his parents attended their younger son's basketball game.

When the Eatons returned home, they found Glen dead, the family's shotgun by his side.

Along with the shock, the torment, the Eatons ran through the endless "what ifs?"

"You deal with what if, where did we go wrong and why didn't we see this?" Gilbert Eaton says. "You feel tremendous blame and that's what makes suicide so difficult. You're being judged as parents by this act."

Glen's younger bother Eddie had his own nagging questions. The brother he idolized had left him without saying goodbye. Now he was alone, living with two parents paralyzed by grief.

"You're left with three people who don't act the way they used to," Gilchrist says. "And you're left to live in a house that is suddenly very empty."

The Eatons and their son Eddie now understand that Glen was likely deeply depressed when he took his life. They know, too, that they are not to blame for his death. They've received counseling and have sought their own ways through the anguish that will never vanish.

More than 90 percent of suicide victims suffer from mental illness, though it may not have been diagnosed or treated at the time of their deaths. In many cases, experts say, underlying psychiatric symptoms are difficult to recognize, especially in teenagers, whose minds and bodies are rapidly growing and changing.

Families like Glen's often piece together warning signs of depression that in hindsight become clearer in the months after a loved one's suicide.

"Suicide is the fatal complication of a psychiatric disorder," says Robert Gebbia, executive director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

"Suicide is not the fault of bad parenting, it's like any other disease. If someone dies of cancer, we don't blame them or their parents for it. We have to get to the point that suicide is viewed the same way."

In the weeks and months after his stepson's suicide, the guilt hit Gilbert Eaton like a hammer. He asked himself: "Where did we go wrong? Why didn't we see he was slipping?"

And then Eaton remembered a conversation he'd had with Glen the summer before his suicide. Glen told Eaton he was feeling down and said, "Maybe I'll kill myself."

"I told him I didn't think that was a smart idea," Eaton said. "What I didn't see was that it was a legitimate cry for help. Not taking him more seriously is something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life."

Eaton knew he had to seek counseling for the guilt and blame that strained his relationship with his wife.

"We both got counseling," Eaton said. "We knew we couldn't let our marriage crumble around us."

Eaton also pushed himself back to work, where he could focus on something besides Glen's death. Though he was still wracked with grief, he forced himself back to a routine.

"I got up every morning and figured I'd go through the motions, push myself to get through one day at time," Eaton says. "I just kept telling myself, 'It's got to get better.' "

A teacher at his school knew Eaton needed help. He stopped by Eaton's office every day after school.

"He just came in my office at 3 o'clock, sat down and he wouldn't say a word," Eaton says. "He'd just listen and I'd start talking."

"A lot of times people don't know what to say to someone who's lost a child to suicide, but you don't have to say anything, you just have to be there," Eaton says.

While Eaton went to work, he worried about his wife. She was so depressed that Eaton feared she would take her own life. He checked on her frequently and tried to distract her from her grief.

"It was a chance to affirm that I could still do something right," Eaton says. "When you lose a child to suicide you continue to torment yourself. I got to the point I needed to do something I could be successful at."

Along with undergoing counseling for seven years, both Eaton and his wife learned more about depression and suicide prevention. Eaton took training from the state on the warning signs of suicidal behavior. He now uses that knowledge to help the students who attend Skowhegan Area High School, where he is principal.

Many of the students and teachers know of his loss and they often encourage troubled kids to talk with Eaton.

"About once a month, I get a kid who comes to see me who is depressed or in crisis," Eaton says. "I have committed myself that I will stop anytime and anything to deal with a kid who needs help."

"I can't turn the clock back to help Glen," Eaton says, "but if I can help some other kid, it takes away a bit of guilt, some of those 'what ifs?' "

Eddie Gilchrist's brother was his hero. Glen ran faster, skied better than his younger brother. He was smart and popular - everything Eddie wanted to be.

Gilchrist was 15 when his brother shot himself, a freshman in high school. He couldn't get angry at his brother but he felt disappointed, confused. He wanted to blame somebody for Glen's death, make sense of his brother's fatal decision.

"When someone's murdered, you can push some of your emotions into hating the person who killed them," Gilchrist says. "But when it's a suicide, the only person to blame is the person who did it, and you can't blame the person who died because you love them.

"So you look for some other person and you start blaming yourself or the people you love the most. It makes it very difficult to get through the grieving because you can't put it anywhere."

Gilchrist went for counseling along with his parents, but he found more solace in spending time alone. He took long runs or walks. Spent time in his room.

He worried too about his mother and stepdad. His mother was almost catatonic. She barely could get herself out of bed to drive him to school.

"It's a shock for most kids to see their parents completely crushed by something," Gilchrist says. "For me, my parents were somebody I went to when I needed help. But then all of a sudden they're having a tougher time than me."

Gilchrist knew his parents were trying to comfort him but he also realized they had their own burdens. He looked to his friends for comfort but even that was difficult, awkward.

"You can't act normal because things aren't normal," Gilchrist says. "No one really wants to talk to you because they don't know what to say. So you try to act like nothing happened, but everyone knows it did."

Now 22 and a senior at the Air Force Academy, Gilchrist says time has eased his loss. He can grin now when he remembers his brother Glen shooting hoops with him outside their home or teasing one another as young boys.

He has also become more aware of depression and suicide and the need to listen closely to friends. He shares his story about his brother's death when he feels it may help someone.

"The reason suicide doesn't get much attention is nobody wants to talk about it," Gilchrist says. "You think if you don't talk about it the hurt will go away. I know now it doesn't work that way."

Weeks later, grief replaced denial. Her sadness left her as lifeless as a rag doll. She had trouble talking, getting out of bed.

She decided to take a year off from her special education job to recover. She dragged herself to the gym every day, to drop and pick up her son Eddie at school.

Six months after Glen's suicide, Eaton flew to Atlanta to meet with Iris Bolton, author of "My Son, My Son, A Guide to Healing After a Suicide in the Family."

Bolton is a counselor and has done a lot of work with suicide survivors. Talking with Bolton gave Eaton the strength to channel her grief into assisting other kids in trouble.

"Part of my healing process was connecting with others who have gone through the same thing and educating myself about the tools to prevent suicide," Eaton says.

Eaton pursued training from Maine's Youth Suicide Prevention Program on how to spot depression and suicide warning signs. She also went back to school for her master's degree in guidance counseling.

In her job as a guidance counselor at Livermore Falls Middle School, she talks to kids who may be confused, depressed and seeking a way to end their hurt. She doesn't hesitate to call parents, warning them, "I'm really concerned about your child."

"I think Glen was in a really black hole and he couldn't see a way out of it," she says.

She also warns families and parents to keep their guns safely secured. "Lock the guns up," she says. "The impulsive kids know where they are in your home, and firearms are the top choice for boys who take their lives."

As the years have passed, Eaton has found comfort sitting by her son's grave, which rests on land owned by Glen's father. The family planted a flower garden there and put up a park bench.

"I stare at that stone and think of Glen's life," Eaton says. "He was a great kid with a lot of goals and aspirations. His life was a lot more than that last day."

As the Dec. 13 anniversary of her son's death approaches, Eaton steels herself for the unavoidable sadness.

"I have to be aware of the dates like his birthday and Christmas and know that I'm going to feel crappy, cry more," she says.

But she knows too that those emotions are normal and necessary. When she talks to other suicide survivors in support groups, she shares her advice with them.

"You have to do what you feel is right for you no matter what anyone else thinks," Eaton says. "If someone tells you to get on with your life, then find another friend. Find someone else who will listen. You need to talk about your child.

"Understand that your friends may change and accept it's not about them not loving you," she says. "It's just that they can't understand. They've never been there."

Youth and suicide in Maine
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