Congressman Jamie Raskin photographed at home in Takoma Park.Photo: Julian DuFort
The first few weeks of January were, for Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, completely life-altering. The 59-year-old Democrat was in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when a mob of angry Trump supporters stormed the building, forcing lawmakers of all political affiliations to flee for safety. He also helped lead the efforts to impeach the former president for his role in inciting the violence. And he did all of the above in the shadow of an even more life-altering event: the Dec. 31, 2020 death of his 25-year-old son, Tommy.
Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of the release of his book,Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy, Raskin says writing about his sudden loss, and speaking about his son’s tremendous impact, ultimately helped him cope with the depths of grief.
“It probably would have been the end of my life had I not been able to talk about it,” Raskin says.
The devastation hasn’t waned, of course, though the 59-year-old Democrat was able to begin what he calls an “extremely cathartic and therapeutic” journey of writing and talking about his son in the months after his death.
“My book is not a how-to book on grieving because I don’t know that that exists,” Raskin says. “Everybody’s just on their journey in dealing with death just like everybody’s on the journey and dealing with life. Any glimpses of understanding I got, I was willing to share.”
Jamie Raskin.ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty
Still, the writing process was helpful for Raskin, who found himself in the throes of grief in the aftermath of Tommy’s death. The book gave him a chance to reflect on his son’s life — and kept him busy during long nights.
“I was sleepless for most of the year, so I was up all night anyway,” he says, adding: “I realized it was something I had to do. I could spend the rest of my life trying to figure out what had happened in those 50 days or I could try to record it as quickly as possible and have a conversation with my family, my friends and my constituents in the country about it. I chose the latter view.”
As Raskin explains, the loss is still intense — but the ebbs and flows of the grieving process have allowed the family to be more open about Tommy’s death.
“We miss Tommy sharply — all of the time — and we talk about him all of the time. But that’s an improvement because it was very hard to talk about him before.”
Looking back, Raskin says Tommy “had a very highly refined, moral sensitivity at a young age that’s something that we appreciated and we thought proud of, but then it began to merge in with some depressive tendencies. And that’s a real darkness, and it really showed up towards the end of college.”
That struggle only intensified with age, and with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“And I want to be clear that I’m not blaming COVID-19 … but it was an enormously isolating and demoralizing period for young people across the country,” the Maryland congressman says. “And especially those who already had a mentor or emotional health struggle.”
Though Tommy’s death came days before the violent riots at the Capitol, Raskin says the two things are “intertwined in my mind.”
That morning, as he prepared to head to the Capitol to certify the election for PresidentJoe Biden, Tommy was fresh on Raskin’s mind and heart.
“I felt Tommy from the beginning of the day in my chest and in my heart, I felt he was with me,” Raskin says.
His daughter, Tabitha, however, was worried, pleading with her dad not to go.
“I told her it was a constitutional duty … Everybody needed to be there,” he says. “So I said, come with me instead.”
Both Tabitha and Raskin’s son-in-law, Hank (who is married to his daughter, Hannah) came along for moral support, not knowing how the day would unfold.
“We started to get reports that the Capitol was under siege and there had been a breach of security and people were entering,” he recounts. “And then we heard people pounding up against the central door to the house, we heard people barreling in and they told us to put on our gas masks, which I didn’t even know existed on the House floor. And the new house chaplain — who was on the second day of the job — got up and gave us a prayer.”
Raskin, Tabitha, and Hank — along with his chief of staff — eventually made their way out of the building and into tunnels that led them to safety.
But even amid the chaos, and in the shadow of Tommy’s death, Raskin came to a realization: “I realized that I wasn’t afraid. I realized I had no fear. And I saw immediately that the worst thing that could ever happened to me had already happened. And I felt no fear.”
Instead, Raskin says he felt a “sense of purpose.”
Nearly a year later, he still feels a sense of purpose, and a commitment to keeping his son’s memory and spirit alive.
“All of us were drowning in grief and agony for the first several months,” Raskin says. “And there was a darkness that was cast down on all of us. Now, I think we’re not drowning so much.”
Virginia Chamlee
source: people.com
