A PUBLIC GRIEF A YEAR LATER, THE MOTHER OF A TEEN SUICIDE VICTIM

Craig Toribara's somber, dark-toned senior portrait hangs over his family's white stone fireplace like his death itself, disturbing and profoundly sad.

One year ago this week, this Ferris High School senior took his own life. On Sept. 12, 1995, Christie Toribara and her husband, Dr. Ted Toribara, discovered that their bright son, the soccer player, the goofy kid with the perfect Dana-Carvey-church-lady impression, was dead.

In the year that has passed, they have struggled to discover meaning in their loss. Like most grieving couples, they mourn differently. While Ted, a Spokane physician, remains more reserved, Christie's grief has become resolutely public. It has taken her back to the causes of her son's anguish, through the pressures and hazards that afflict kids. It has engaged her faith, fueled her determination and sharpened her influence on the entire community. She has learned that the national rate for youth suicide over the last four decades has quadrupled. In Washington state alone, youth suicide has risen 513 percent since 1960. "Our emphasis is on not letting this happen to anyone else," Christie Toribara said during an interview in her South Hill living room last week. A Spokane pharmacist, she resembles her dark-haired son. "I would hate to have anyone else go through this," she said. A few of the seeds that led to Craig's death may have been planted 15 years ago, on an August morning in 1981 when Christie Toribara discovered her 3-year-old son trembling on the sofa. This was the child who normally bounded through each day with so much energy and enthusiasm that he left his mother exhausted by suppertime. This was the child who was so bright that a psychologist had pegged his IQ at 165. Christie knew something was wrong. She began to question Craig. Was he upset with Katy, his little friend down the block? Had they been fighting? Was he upset with Katy's mom? Craig quietly answered "No" to all of her questions. Finally, she persuaded him to explain why he wouldn't play with Katy any more. The story tumbled out. A week earlier, Craig had decided to walk home alone for the first time, leaving without asking Katy's mother's permission. A man was sitting in a parked car along the route. The man opened the door, tried to lure Craig into the car and offered candy. The man smelled so bad, Craig told his mother, that he ran all the way home. The police could do nothing. When they received the report, the would-be kidnapper's trail was a week old. It took six weeks for Christie to coax Craig out into the yard again. Six months later, he asked for a dog, and an Akita named Teruko became an extra source of security. Craig's old bravery seemed to return. The fear rose up only when he was faced with venturing to a new camp or activity. He would defiantly insist on having a friend present. "To me, he had gotten through it," Christie said. "But I didn't realize that it created what was probably a very deep-seated fear." Last September, at the start of his senior year, a 17-year-old Craig was clearly troubled. That summer he had broken up with his girlfriend and begun to worry about the eventual prospect of leaving home for college. He was waiting to hear from soccer coaches at Johns Hopkins University, Brown and Macalester, hoping for a place on a college soccer team and planning to become an emergency room physician. They were all distant schools, away from the companionship of his Ferris friends, far from the safe harbor of home. The old fear echoed. Coaches of the soccer teams weren't getting back to him. He worried that maybe he wouldn't be selected for a team after all. He felt pressured by teachers and coaches and an inhuman senior-year schedule of conflicting honors classes, soccer practices, and work requirements for his business education program. On the first day of school, he was disappointed not to get the English teacher he'd expected and worried that his assigned teacher's illnesses would prevent his class from doing well on the Advanced Placement exam. When he went out, he felt hassled by local store owners and their suspicions of teens. He'd been roughed up by gang members, and his car had been burglarized. Although popular, he felt isolated from his friends who drank or took drugs. Even reading the daily newspaper, a habit recommended by an English teacher, disturbed him. Opening it, he would find one violent act after another. The last two authors he'd read in honors English the previous year had been Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, both suicide victims. Craig saw a popular movie, one that his mother refuses to mention publicly, and watched a character in it commit suicide. He commented later, "If I ever wanted to kill myself, I now know exactly how to do it." The signs were subtle. But Christie knew her son felt pressured. She made plans to visit Ferris to find out how his schedule could be rearranged to give him some breathing room. She would go on Friday, her day off. She never made it. On Tuesday afternoon, after turning in every last school assignment, Craig headed home and took his own life. A telephone call from Johns Hopkins offering a place on the soccer team arrived Wednesday. That day Christie and Ted arranged for a private visitation at Ball and Dodd Funeral Home, where they were ushered into a small, quiet room. Craig lay on a gurney, wearing the shorts and T-shirt from the day before. He was barefoot. He looked asleep. Christie walked over and touched his hair. Memories streamed into her mind. She remembered all the days of his childhood when she read books aloud and stroked his silky hair. She gazed at his new mustache and goatee, no longer the wispy sprouts she had once eyed dubiously. She never had a chance to admit they finally looked decent. She placed her hand over Craig's. The icy coldness, the result of funeral home refrigeration, stunned her. As she touched her son's hand, Christie vowed to fight all that had harmed him. This week, as Christie Toribara visits her son's ashes on the anniversary of his death, 30,000 brochures on suicide prevention will be headed into the hands of Spokane's precious, pressured high school students and their parents. Christie has spent this year grieving and carrying out the vow she made at the funeral home. She focused first on suicide prevention. She began attending monthly meetings of the Spokane County Suicide Task Force. She met with the staff of Ferris High School. She attended four meetings of school administrators at the District 81 office downtown. Christie decided to be as open as possible about her son's death, with one exception. Because of her fear of suicide contagion, she does not publicly reveal the method of Craig's death or the movie that may have inspired it. The immediate result of Christie's work has been brochures for teens and their parents. She has learned that the beginning of the school year, like the end, is a particularly high-risk time for suicide. The brochures list the following statistics: In Washington state, suicide ranks as the second leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds. Spokane County hospitals treated 351 young people for attempted suicide from 1990 to 1994. "The way we'll turn around suicide is to educate people, to tell them the problems have solutions, they are temporary, but suicide isn't," Christie said. She has learned that the warning signs for suicide can be subtle, that the causes are usually complex. "It's kind of like a glass of water that's very full. You add a couple of drops and it will spill over," Christie said. "It wasn't the last two drops that hurt him." She learned of a syndrome called "the suicide trance," which can overtake a troubled person and leave him incapable of reaching out for help. She has felt, firsthand, suicide's profound waste. "It leaves behind a pain that will never go away," she said. "It takes away everything you had hoped for in the future." Christie has started a life-skills program that she and Ted have named SMILE (Students Mastering Important Life-Skills Education). She has helped school counselors write a handbook for staff and parents, addressing the high-stress issues that affect Spokane's teens. It will be published this fall. Using money from Craig's memorial fund, Christie has ordered collections of books and videos on suicide prevention for Spokane schools. She paid for a new counselor for Satori, a local summer program for gifted junior and senior high school kids. She hopes a District 81-produced video and special sophomore English units on suicide prevention will follow. It will be suicide survivors such as Christie Toribara, says local suicide prevention expert Dr. Paul Quinnett, who will finally bring to this issue the emotional clout and political power it deserves. Mike Cantlon, chairman of the gifted education task force for Spokane schools, says Christie reminds parents and teachers of the importance of listening to kids. "That's Christie's message," Cantlon says. "She's coming through loud and clear. "It's made some differences already, and I appreciate her enormously." Mary Brown, District 81's supervisor of student services, has worked with Christie on the suicide prevention brochures. "Christie's unrelenting in her monitoring of our progress," Brown says. "And she's very supportive." Christie plans to keep her vow. She hopes to correspond with colleges and coaches about their unrealistic demands that each applicant be a "superkid." She hopes to educate teachers and coaches about the stresses that afflict a perfectionistic high-achiever like her son. "It's one of the first times in my life when I don't feel things are mapped out for me. I'm going forward on trust and faith," said Christie, a lifelong Episcopalian. "At this point Craig is beyond people hurting him. Now it's time to change society."

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
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