June 20, 2006
Senator Shares Story Of Son's Suicide
Oregon's Gordon Smith, Wife, Hope Reaching Out Helps Others
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Play CBS Video Video Senator's Private Pain Garrett Smith was adopted by Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith and his wife, Sharon. Garret eventually committed suicide, and his family never saw it coming. Tracy Smith reports.
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Sen. Gordon Smith (R, Ore.) and his wife, Sharon (CBS/The Early Show)
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Garrett Smith, in an undated photo (CBS/The Early Show)
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Interactive Substance Abuse In America Get the facts on a national problem. Find out where to get help, learn how drugs affect the body and compare state drunk-driving laws.
The Smiths sent their son to a psychiatrist, who prescribed antidepressants.
But he was spiraling down, faster than they knew.
The message on his answering machine could have been the final alarm.
"It just said," Gordon told Tracy, " 'This is Smith. I don't feel well. Do not call me anymore.' "
Then, Gordon described the moment when their doorbell rang: "The police are at the door. … They just said, 'We don't know how to make this easy. But your son was found -- dead in his apartment. And -- it appears to be a suicide.' "
The day before his 22nd birthday, Garrett Lee Smith swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills and hanged himself in the closet of his college apartment.
Wracked by guilt, the senator worried that he'd put his political career ahead of his son.
"Was I complicit in killing my son?" Gordon says he wondered, "because … I think I was a good daddy."
"You were a great daddy," Sharon reminds him. "He loved you. And he was really proud of you. I'm sure of that."
"You still have to tell him that?" Tracy asked.
"Yep," Sharon confirmed. "I still have to remind him of that."
Part of Garrett's note to his parents read, "Put me in the ground, and forget about me."
"Well," Gordon remarked, "We haven't listened to him."
The senator decided to ignore his son's dying wish, and his own instinct to withdraw from the spotlight.
In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Gordon said, "I didn't volunteer to be a champion of this issue, but it arose out of the personal experience of being a parent who lost a child to mental illness and suicide."
A year after Garrett's death, President Bush signed the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million in grants to help prevent suicide by young people. Among the things the funds were earmarked for: mental health screenings in schools.
"We take our kids for physical vaccinations, dental exams, eye checkups," Gordon says. "When do we think to take our -- our son or daughter for a mental health checkup?"
Sen. Smith has spent most of his career as a public servant, but it's his private pain that could be his most enduring legacy, Tracy Smith observes.
"So," she asked Gordon, "to parents out there who watch this story and say, 'Well, that might be my kid, but probably not,' what would you say?"
"If this can happen in our house, it can happen in your house," Gordon replied.
Suicide takes the lives of more than 30,000 Americans every year, and is the second leading cause of death among college students.
Sen. Smith calls it an epidemic. That's why he wrote a book about his son's life, "Remembering Garrett: One Family's Battle with a Child's Depression."
Gordon and Sharon hope that, by sharing Garrett's story, other parents will catch the signs of teen depression much sooner.
To read an excerpt of the senator's book, click here.
Web sites offering resources for suicide prevention and depression awareness include:
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Active Minds
Columbia University TeenScreen Program
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
The Jason Foundation
The Jed Foundation
National Alliance of Mental Illness
National Council for Suicide Prevention
HHS Mental Health Services Administration Substance Abuse page
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