The Death of Tommy Raskin

From a statement by Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD) and his wife on the death of their son, Tommy:

Tommy Raskin had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind. He began to be tortured later in his 20s by a blindingly painful and merciless ‘disease called depression,’ as Tabitha put it on Facebook over the weekend, a kind of relentless torture in the brain for him, and despite very fine doctors and a loving family and friendship network of hundreds who adored him beyond words and whom he adored too, the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last for our dear boy, this young man of surpassing promise to our broken world.

On the last hellish brutal day of that godawful miserable year of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people all over the world died alone in bed in the darkness from an invisible killer disease ravaging their bodies and minds, we also lost our dear, dear, beloved son, Hannah and Tabitha’s beloved irreplaceable brother, a radiant light in this broken world.

He left us this farewell note on New Year’s Eve day: “Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”

This is absolutely gut wrenching.

The fact that Raskin had to experience the Capitol siege the day after his son’s funeral is just unconscionable. And for him to still be working at this point, doing interviews and holding his colleagues accountable, is nothing shy of heroic.

I hope his family is able to find as much solace as they can amidst these impossibly difficult events, and may Tommy truly rest in peace.