Personal Loss Changes Business as Usual

Republican leaders are fuming at Gordon Smith. The Oregon senator blocked this year's budget resolution until his GOP colleagues agreed to add billions of dollars to Medicaid, the health care program for the poor.

"There's been a lot of anger towards me," Smith says. "It's been rough."

But Smith doesn't care. He didn't hold up the measure for political reasons. He acted out of personal grief. He was motivated by the suicide of his 21-year-old son and the conviction that he must do everything he can to prevent others from falling prey to mental illness.

Usually this column chronicles the craven reasons lawmakers take up causes: money, lobbying pressure and hunger for power. But once in a while, they are also compelled by matters of the heart. This is the story of one legislator who turned his family's loss into a public crusade. It is also about the little-known "fraternity of sorrow" in the Senate that helped him to do so.

Like many members of Congress, Smith was a loving but distracted parent. He and his wife Sharon lavished as much attention as they could on their three adopted children. Their middle child, Garrett Lee Smith, was happy, easygoing and well liked. He was an Eagle Scout, a devout Mormon and an avid outdoorsman who liked to mountain-bike and snowboard.

But he was also troubled. He had dyslexia, a learning disability that made it difficult for him to read and write. At age 13, Sharon found him crying in his room, convinced that his struggles with schoolwork would prevent him from supporting a family of his own. In high school he got in trouble for drinking alcohol.

Gradually, Garrett's dark periods and drinking bouts began to eclipse his sunnier moments, including a successful two-year, post-high-school mission to England for his church. He had trouble getting out of bed. He stopped shaving. His weight ballooned. His friends knew there was something wrong and told his parents.

They did what they could. They made sure Garrett saw a doctor and took medication. At one point, his best friend took away his firearms out of fear that he might shoot himself. Finally, to shake him of his depression, his parents canceled other plans and went with him to England on vacation because that's where he wanted to go.

According to the Oregonian newspaper, the trip was harrowing. Garrett said he might take his life and his parents stayed up all night assuring him that they loved him and that his friends and his church loved him too. Gordon Smith told Garrett that there is "a good and happy place for him in this world."

When they parted, Garrett seemed like his old self again. He kissed his mother and made plans with them to get together soon. They were optimistic for the first time in a long time that Garrett was on the mend. But it didn't turn out that way. They would never see their son alive again.

On Sept. 8, 2003, Garrett was found hanged in his apartment in Orem, Utah, where he was enrolled for college. He killed himself one day short of his 22nd birthday.

The Smiths were devastated. Gordon Smith, the prosperous businessman, church bishop and star politician, felt as though his life had been a failure. According to the Oregonian, he confided to friends: "I spent the last 10 years trying to save the world and I should have been trying to save my son."