Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was副书院秘书在奥巴马年，为他们的儿子，托马斯（汤米）raskin发表了一个深深的移动和重要悼词。汤米在2020年的最后一天去世。他只是25岁。
这对夫妇在媒介上发表的情感声明充满了幽默和爱。这对发光的孩子迷失了太快的致敬 - 以及富有同情心的生活，作为“破碎的世界中的辐射光线”，参考犹太人tenet的tikkun olam.
The taboo-breaking tribute is filled with pictures of Tommy, from cherubic学步的to strapping adulthood. In every picture, he exudes joy; the expression in his piercing blue eyes is unbearably kind and thoughtful. The piece speaks of a boy widely loved — by his family; his two sisters, Tabitha and Hannah; many cousins; and by his peers. He grew to be a man with a passion for writing, languages, and animals, as well as an anti-war activist. He graduated from Amherst College and found a passion for the law. Tommy was a second-year law student at Harvard — one who gave away more than half the money he made as a teaching assistant to charity — before he lost his battle with depression.
The eulogy also movingly recounts Tommy’s Jewish evolution. He went from being a 12-year-old who wrote “a detailed brief to his mother explaining why he should not have to do a Bar Mitzvah and citing Due Process liberty interests (appeal rejected),” to becoming a Sunday school teacher, “often substituting his social-struggle analysis of the Exodus story for teachings on the Hebrew alphabet,” to interning at J Street during his years as an undergrad.
Tommy’s parents also write about his passion for non-fiction literature, including books about “World War II and resistance to Nazism, Jewish history, libertarianism, moral philosophy, the history of the Middle East conflict, peace movements,” and his love for the writings of Jewish authors Gar Alperovitz (about dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and Peter Singer (on animal rights).
“Tommy Raskin,” his parents write, “had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind.” The detailed obituary gives a full sense of just what bright and driven presence he was. It’s hard to believe the volume of his accomplishments fit into just 25 years.
As is appropriate, and recommended by most mental health professionals, Rep. Raskin and his wife do not go into the details of the circumstances of his death, probably because they wish their son to be remembered for the many things he did in his short life of kindness and service.
但他们所做的是令人难以置信的重要 - 汤米，他们写，失去了一个“蒙上痛苦和无情”的战斗与他的妹妹Tabitha被称为“一种叫做萧条的疾病”，这是因为他20多岁以来已经困扰着他。
“尽管医生和一个充满优质的家庭和友谊网络，谁崇拜他的言语，他也很崇拜，”他们写的，“痛苦变得压倒而不屈不挠，终于为我们亲爱的男孩，这个年轻人超越的男子承诺我们破碎的世界。“
While the family doesn’t go into details about Tommy’s depression, the eulogy movingly breaks the stigma around depression and death by suicide — that people who suffer from it are in any way weak or unaccomplished; that you can always tell if someone is struggling with it; that it can always be beaten. This is especially significant the social isolation and stressors related to the Covid-19 pandemic has created a心理健康危机对于许多individuals and communities.
Suicide is a taboo subject in Judaism, and the Raskins do not mention this word. But what they do write about Tommy succumbing to his struggle with depression is accurate — deaths by suicide can often be deaths from terminal mental illness. In other words, depression-like other mental illnesses, and like many illnesses, in general — can and does kill. It does not spare the young, the old, the firm, the infirm, those who hide it well, and those whose entire lives are consumed by it. Yet, just like any other fatal disease, it does not define a lived human life.
Tommy lived and left behind an amazing legacy. He was a man who was fiercely himself and fought ardently for what he believed, and who attempted to make this broken world more whole with his every step. “Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me,” he wrote in his final message to his family. May we all take care of this world in hishonor, and may his memory be a blessing.
照片由drew Angerer / Getty Image
