Patrick's Gravestone

Dear friends of Pat,

Patrick's stone was put in place last week. I'm attaching the pictures. But first I must apologize for not writing sooner. My dad's funeral was a big event on March 3rd, and I tried to help Anne prepare as much as possible. And then before that I spent a couple of weeks with them before he died. It was a time of limited capability for him, but it was a magical time for me because I learned more lessons about living and dying. My dad fought hard, much like I think Pat must have the last weeks before he died. The difference was that my dad was mentally able until close to the end. His cancer had metastasized, from a melanoma on the back of his head, to his lung, and then his spine, liver, and brain--all within a year from the time you saw him last March. For the most part, he was clear-headed. You had to go some to follow his logic, but it was there. He stopped treatment in January after a brain radiation at the Morris Cancer Center at USC detected more than the three tumors spotted in a cat scan at St. John's. They saw at least seven, including one too big to radiate, and others too small. Their equipment was higher resolution than St. John's.
In comparison, I think Pat's disease went straight to his brain but was not detected. It was just as painful as my dad's tumors and just as lethal. But the big difference is that it was not considered a physical ailment--at least by me--and I would argue that I'm not alone in this general perception. We can detect tumors but not depression. Why? It is just as deadly and even more insidious. It is a physical ailment, and it attacked the very organ that Pat and you and I and everybody thought would save him. It attacked his beautiful mind and his will to live. And the really sad part is that no one knew he was sick, no one gave him any morphine, and even more heartbreaking, he probably suffered more than my father--all because we didn't understand depression as a physiological problem. We thought it was just sadness, that he would recover from his heartache like most of us do, and I was the biggest offender. I did not see it as a medical problem before Pat died.
We have to change our perception of depression. I certainly have. Pat is reason enough, but for the people who didn't know him, who haven't had to search for answers, then the murder/suicide at Virginia Tech should make it obvious. Until we can test--medically, chemically, by scanning the brain, whatever it takes. Until we can test for depression, we are going to see this over and over and over. Seung-Hui Cho tragically brought this issue to the forefront of the nation, and the nation is feeling like we have since Pat died.
The placement of Pat's stone has caused reflection. I see him now as one of many victims who suffered psychological pain, who had to diagnose themselves, navigate the mental health system, describe their symptoms, try hit or miss drugs, try therapy, talk themselves into feeling better--when all the while, there was a physical deterioration. It was like trying to talk my dad out of cancer. It's like we're in the dark ages of mental illness. Still.
I hope to God that more research will come out of this latest example of self-harm. To me, it's the key. It's the key to saving the beautiful people like Pat and saving the victims of those who turn their destruction outward. Pat was the opposite of Cho. He turned his destruction inward, but the questions in the aftermath are strikingly similar. How could we not have known? Why didn't someone step in? How should colleges handle mental illness? And on and on. It's an all too familiar discussion for us. We asked the same questions of ourselves all year. How could this happen?
That's what I asked myself as I stood in front of his headstone. How could this happen?

I offer a parting link on the issue of mental health and Virginia Tech:

http://www.upi.com/Consumer_Health_Daily/Reports/2007/04/24/caregiving_factors_pointing_to_suicide/

I'd also like to mention that several of you have opened my eyes to the American Federation of Suicide Prevention, which organizes suicide walks all over the country. They're called Out of the Darkness. I did one in the pouring rain last October. It was a large group of people, all soaking wet from walking five kilometers in a downpour and all devastated by suicide. I walked alongside a woman who had lost her niece and the niece's boyfriend. It was a double suicide in the garage of the mother's house. I have taught Romeo and Juliet for six years. I never knew it could really happen. There were about twenty parents who had lost a child. Twenty people in one room who had been through this hell. I couldn't believe there were so many tragedies like Pat. It was a communal awakening, and it advanced my questions. At fifteen months since Pat’s death, I have begun to ask what it is I am to come away with from this tragedy? I think the answers lie with all the other Patricks to come and, yes, even the Chos. Their minds have been altered in tangible and, hopefully, predictable ways.

All my deepest love,

Lisette
Hillside
104 Deerfield Road
Pomfret Center, CT 06259
Home phone: 860 974 3361
Cell phone: 860 428 4084

And I rest in a quiet realm.
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song

From "I Am Lost To The World"
by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)

Pictures by Patrick's dad