With an eye on helping kids, Ryans discuss their child who took his life
Jim Ryan comes out of his home office holding a framed photo of his two youngest children.
They are two peas in a pod, the same blond hair, the same giggly smiles. Annie's small hand rests on her beloved older brother's shoulder.
“This picture just kills me,” the former Illinois Attorney General says quietly.
“When I think they're both gone ...”
Annie died in 1997 at age 12, with little warning, from a brain tumor. Patrick committed suicide four years ago, at 24, shooting himself as police surrounded the Ryans' Elmhurst home, his terrified family huddled together in prayer at a neighbor's house two doors away.
Jim and Marie Ryan endured the worst nightmare a parent can imagine. Twice.
Ryan recalls the moment he knew they'd lost Annie.
“I saw the (hospital) chaplain coming through the door. I looked at her, and I thought to myself, ‘My God, you're not going to say she's gone, don't say that.' It was like in slow motion, I could not believe my ears.”
And then, a decade later — his son.
“Our home was surrounded by police. I wanted to go in; they wouldn't let me ... The police went in. A few minutes later, the chief came to the door. I looked in his eyes, and I knew. I thought, ‘My God, don't say it.' He did. ‘He's gone.'”
How do parents cope with such unfathomable pain?
“There is a hole in your heart that never heals,” Ryan said.
But the Ryans channel their grief into helping others. The Annie Ryan Run, in its 12th year, has raised more than $500,000 for the Midwest Children's Brain Tumor Center at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
And later this month, the first Patrick J. Ryan Golf Outing will raise funds for a new Catholic Charities program for children who have lost loved ones to suicide.
The event is Sept. 22 at St. Andrew's Golf & Country Club in West Chicago. Jim and Marie will be there all day, because they know firsthand how suicide's effects ripple through the entire family.
‘A total shock'
Their son was handsome, smart and funny. “A wonderful, charming, troubled young man,” his mother says.
His family meant everything to him, the Ryans said. On the last day of his life, he went to the hospital to see his brother Matthew's newborn baby girl.
“He was excited and happy,” Marie Ryan recalled. “He was in a terrific mood. It was just a total shock when we got the call (later that he) was in dire straits, in the house with a gun.”
But he had been struggling for years. Annie's death, when the boy was 14, hit him hard. The two were so close. Ten years later, he still kept his sister's picture in his car.
“Not a day went by that he didn't talk about her,” Jim Ryan said.
Ryan's son eventually was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He dealt with inflammatory arthritis and back problems that required surgery. He also turned to drugs.
The grief, the addiction and pain, the underlying depression, all came to a head that day in October 2007.
The Ryans had been through losing a child before, but suicide, Marie says, “is a different animal.”
They asked themselves: Could they have prevented it? Tried a different doctor, a different treatment for his bipolar disorder? His sister Amy second-guessed her frantic phone call to the police after she found out he had a gun. Is that what put him over the edge?
“To say it is devastating for parents and siblings is an understatement,” Jim Ryan said.
As they struggled to cope, the Ryans found tremendous support and comfort from Catholic Charities' Loving Outreach to the Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) program.
“I don't think that anybody that has gone through a suicide should be without it.” Marie Ryan said. “I don't think they'll be able to handle it without that kind of counseling.”
Even years later, she said, the pain “still rears its ugly head, and you may have to go through (counseling) all over again, but you have somebody to go to, somebody to reassure you that you did the right thing and you couldn't have done any more.”
The new LOSS Children's Program, which the golf outing will benefit, is especially dear to the Ryans' hearts because of the impact their son's death had on their children and grandchildren.
The program will provide individual, family and group counseling for children, as well as consultation for caregivers. Children face special issues when a parent or other loved one commits suicide. Many keep their sadness inside, for fear of upsetting the surviving parent or family members.
“Our hope is to give other families faced with tragedy the opportunity to receive the love and support we wish had been available for our children and grandchildren,” Jim Ryan said.
Today, Jim and Marie Ryan live a full life. Jim is a fellow at Benedictine University in Lisle, where he teaches courses in law, politics and government, Marie works with children in an after-school program.
In addition to their four surviving children, the Ryans have 10 grandchildren, ages 17 months to 18 years. Their daughter Amy and her two children live with them, filling their Elmhurst home with preschool toys and laughter.
“You learn how to integrate (the loss) into your life, and you try to live your life's journey,” Jim Ryan said. “You have other kids and grandchildren; you can't just give up.”
Jim and Marie say their son would be so proud that his older brothers took the lead in planning the golf fundraiser.
They picture Annie and Patrick together, in heaven, still teasing each other.
“Mental illness carries a stigma, and it should not,” Jim Ryan said. “We have to take it out of the shadows and talk about it.
“If no one talks about it, how is it going to get better?”
Inaugural Patrick J. Ryan Golf Outing
<B>When: </B>Thursday, September 22
<B>Where: </B>St. Andrew's Golf & Country Club, West Chicago
<B>Why:</B> To support Catholic Charities' new Loving Outreach to the Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) Program for Children and Youth
<B>Details: </B>18 holes of golf, continental breakfast, lunch and hole contests. Cocktail reception at 4 p.m., followed by dinner, awards ceremony and silent auction. Former Chicago Bear and NBC Chicago sports anchor Mike Adamle is the guest emcee.
<B>Tickets: </B>Golf reservations start at $200. Dinner tickets may be purchased separately for $75. Hole sponsorships are available. For tickets, contact Ashley Owen at 312-655-7912 or aowen@catholiccharities.net.
<B>Info:</B> <a href="http://www.catholiccharities.net/patrickryangolf">catholiccharities.net/patrickryangolf</a>