contributed photo
Jonathon Robbins clowns around just before he blows out the candles on his birthday cake several years ago. He committed suicide at age 22. 

On April 28, 2010, Kurt and Kathy Robbins brought their daughter, Arianna, to confirmation practice at St. Boniface Church in Cold Spring.

When they returned home – Kurt driving the car – they stopped at the garage. Opening the garage door with the remote opener, Kathy saw son Jonathon standing inside the garage, but in a split second she thought it was odd because he was standing in such a strange posture. Within another split second Kathy heard her husband cry out: “Jonathon! No!!”

Wails of grief and tears began when all three of them realized Jonathon, only 22 years old, had hung himself with a rope in the garage.

It was the awful shock that began a long process of mourning for the entire family. Arianna, 18; and son Jordan, 14, went through some very difficult times and needed counseling for their grief. Kurt and Kathy’s process of healing took a constructive turn when they decided to help others who are suffering from mental illness.

They are in the process of planning a benefit for Saturday, April 28 starting at 9 a.m. at St. Boniface Parish Center in Cold Spring. Called “Let the Sun Shine,” it will be a 2.2 mile run-walk with other events such as a bake sale, silent auction and door prizes.

The Robbinses started the fundraiser last year and expected maybe about 200 people to attend. They were pleasantly surprised when more than 700 people came from throughout central Minnesota, including from St. Joseph.

Nearly $15,000 was raised, which was donated to the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation in New York, which researches virtually every kind of mental illness.

The Robbinses were also surprised at how many people have been affected directly by mental illness or who have friends or relatives that deal with the illness, including families whose loved ones committed suicide. The Robbinses now know 10 parents in the area who have lived through the tragedy of their children taking their own lives.

Kathy is also starting a Child Loss Support Group in Cold Spring, with the help of Life Transitions of Catholic Charities.

Personal experience

The Robbinses have had personal experience with mental illness because their beloved Jonathon suffered from adolescent schizophrenia, a severe mental illness often accompanied by auditory hallucinations that can appear in someone’s late teens or early 20s.

Jonathon, as a child and young teenager, was friendly, outgoing, charming and intelligent – with bright green eyes and a quick smile that could “light up a room,” as his family and friends often remarked. He loved art and music and had begun to teach himself how to play piano.

As he became older, however, some kind of bleak mood seemed to overcome him from time to time. He – and his family – realized something just wasn’t quite right. He was diagnosed with adolescent schizophrenia, and for a time things went just fine.

He became an honor-roll student at the University of Minnesota, ran in the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth and enjoyed every aspect of life. The medications he was taking seemed to be working quite well. But then, later, in late 2009 and early 2010, his world seemed to unravel. His grades dropped; he spent almost all of his time in his student apartment.

One day in late February, two years ago, he started hearing voices that seemed to command him to spur-of-the-moment round trips to Texas. Forty-eight hours later, back from Texas, he showed up at his parents’ Cold Spring home, afraid, fearful of the voices and terrified of what he might do next.

His parents admitted him to the hospital where he went through a regimen of tests and medication adjustments.

More help needed

When he was released it was obvious to him and his parents he still needed more help. They agreed he should quit school and move back home. Anti-psychotic medications made the hallucinatory voices go away, but he still wasn’t feeling or thinking quite right.

Toward the end of April, he admitted himself back into the hospital. Once again, he came home – on the morning of April 28, 2010, which was to be – as it tragically happened – his last day.

That day, just before his parents and sister had to go to her confirmation practice, he promised his mother he would not even think of harming himself.

“He seemed so happy that day,” Kathy remembered. “He was joking, laughing, his old self as he watched TV.”

But she told him if his moods should begin to spiral downward again, he should call her immediately and she would come back home in just two minutes. They told each other, “I love you,” and then the parents and Arianna left for the church.

In the meantime, 14-year-old Jordan was playing video games on television. Jonathon walked past him into the garage.

Guilt, second thoughts

For months, like all families of children who commit suicide, Kurt and Kathy Robbins and their children wondered what they could have done differently. Was Jonathon giving subtle signals of the drastic action he intended to do. What if they had not gone to confirmation that day? What if one of the parents had stayed home? There was an entire string of “What ifs?” to ponder, again and again, with an agony of stinging guilt.

But, gradually, like other parents, the Robbinses realized they could not have prevented Jonathon from doing what he did, that his unthinkable suicide was no one’s “fault.” That realization caused Kathy to work all the harder to help raise funds and awareness about mental illness. There are many types of mental illness – from depression to schizophrenia and paranoia.

However, what they all have in common, is stigma, Kathy said. While progress has been made through the decades on de-stigmatizing mental illness, it still exists, she said. A big problem with Jonathon, she said, is he was acutely aware of his illness and felt terrible about the burdens it imposed on others.

He did not want to cause others to feel sorry for him or to treat him differently, and yet at times the illness did cause a communications barrier so Jonathon began to distant himself from friends and acquaintances, becoming a virtual “loner” except within his immediate family.

Cure, better meds

Like all people affected by mental illness, the Robbinses hope most of all for a cure. Lacking that, in the meantime, they hope desperately that medications will be improved and fine-tuned for each person suffering from mental illness so the medications can control the illness as much as possible.

One frustration for Jonathon, Kathy said, is a medication would be prescribed for him, which more or less worked to squelch some symptoms, but then there would be other unwelcome moods and thoughts the medication would either cause or not be effective against.

The organization to which the Robbinses and others donate, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, has made great progress in researching mental illness in recent years. There is a keen hope a breakthrough may be near on how to predict mental illness while people are still in their childhood, before the illness strikes full force, as Jonathon’s did.

Kathy has learned how not to ask that heart-nagging question, Why?

“I try not to spend my time asking why,” she said. “I know why. He was in pain. He was worried about the people he loved. I try to thank God for letting me be his mom. Some people never get to experience the kind of love we shared, and I got to have it for 22 years. Jonathon always said it was me and him against the world.

Jonathon died knowing how much we loved him, and we knew how much he loved us. The last words exchanged between him, me, his dad, his brother and sister were that we loved him.”

Kathy operates an at-home daycare business. Kurt is a maintenance worker for the St. Cloud Hospital.

Anyone who wants to register for the upcoming “Let the Sun Shine” fundraiser should go to the website at: www.letthesunshinerun.com. On that site, click “online registration,” then scroll down for both registration and how to contribute.

The site also includes more about the Robbinses’ family story, about Jonathon and about mental-health resources.