The half-eaten bowl of ice cream left on the kitchen counter and the partially filled dishwasher first alerted Jan Burnside something was amiss in her home on a January afternoon in 1986.
The ambulance with sirens blaring and neighbors standing with heads lowered in the driveway warned Bob Burnside of an impending calamity.
On that January day in Englewood, Robin Irene Burnside, Jan and Bob’s 17-year-old daughter, died by suicide, leaving the melted ice cream and unfinished chore as the final clues in a tragic mystery her parents know they will never solve.
“When a person does take their life, many, many times they take the answers with them,” says Jan. “Even if a loved one came back and told us why, it wouldn’t be a good enough answer.”
From 1999 to 2002, an average of 30,206 deaths by suicide a year were reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2002, there were 16.1 suicides in Colorado per 100,000 residents, the seventh-highest rate in the nation.
For each one of those deaths, there is an estimated six deeply affected friends or family members, the survivors.
As survivors for almost 20 years, the Burnsides have struggled through stages of grief including guilt, anger, sorrow and acceptance.
“It’s one of those lessons where you have to go through the process,” he says. “You can’t go over it; you can’t go under it. You have to hit it head on.”
Since their daughter’s death, the Burnsides, who now live in Centennial, have worked with support groups, hospitals, first-responders and schools to educate about suicide and heal wounds. In 2001, the couple formed the Suicide Prevention Intervention Network, a nonprofit agency dedicated to suicide prevention and intervention through education and survivor support.
Through the group, the Burnsides lead Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training workshops and Heartbeat, a survivor’s support group. If funding can be obtained, they hope to take their program to countries like Estonia, where the suicide rate was 27.3 per 100,000 people in 2002, according to the World Health Organization.
“After a while a person does need to grow and help other people,” Jan says.
Helping people, for Jan and Bob, includes sharing their own story of an all-American family devastated by suicide.
“It scared a lot of people because if it happened to us, it could happen to them,” says Bob.
Robin attended private school, dated a boy her parents liked and was involved in church. Even with 20 years of hindsight, the Burnsides can’t see any signs they missed, though they know now Robin shared thoughts of her plan with two friends. They accept that the past can’t be changed, and they relish their daughter’s memory.
Quiet, petite, refined, caring, reliable, responsible, perhaps too responsible – her parents can’t come up with enough adjectives to describe Robin.
From his wallet, Bob removes a picture of Robin. It is the same photograph memorialized on a survivor’s quilt, hanging in the church basement where the Burnsides lead training programs.
Robin’s smiling face graces the top left corner of the dark-blue quilt. Her soft hair, delicate features and youth give an angelic aura to her preserved impression centered in a white pinwheel pattern.
The inscription in the square Bob and Jan bought to honor their only child reads “Forever Remembered” in blue thread.
“These people aren’t running to death,” Bob says. “I know the pain of losing Robin, but I don’t know the pain she was going through.”
By now, the Burnsides know what they’ll do when they see a teenager coping badly with a pregnancy, a retiree lonely since his wife died, or a man standing on the edge of a bridge looking for any reason to live.
“Nothing says that we have to stop,” says Jan, adding after a pause: “But we probably will stop to see if we can help.”
Staff writer Joan Gandy can be reached at 303-820-1689 or jgandy@denverpost.com.
Learn about suicide myths, do’s and don’ts
Here are some myths about suicide:
The dreariness of winter leads to an increase in suicides. In fact, spring, when everything is coming up green, is when suicide rates tend to climb the highest.
Teenagers are the group most likely to complete
suicide. Even though teens get the most media attention, white males over the age of 65 are the group with the highest suicide rate.
People who commit suicide leave a note. In fact, letters are left only in a spattering of suicides and often lead to more questions than answers. It is estimated that less than one in five suicides will include a note.
People who talk about suicide are not serious. In fact, most people who attempt suicide tell someone beforehand. While the suicide may not be preventable, people who talk about suicide should be taken seriously.
Your chance to act
In the back corner of a high school classroom sits a student with her head down on the desk, hair over her face, staring blankly out the window. She is new in town and has yet to find friends who accept her. Her clothes, personality and appearance make her an outsider. While her grades were good at her previous school, they’ve fallen substantially since the transfer.
It’s lonely, painful and sometimes hopeless in this new life, and she knows there is a bottle of painkillers in the medicine cabinet.
If she came to you, would you know what to do?
What not to do:
1. Do not keep suicide threats a secret.
2. Do not act shocked or condemn the person.
3. Do not interject your own problems and feelings.
4. Do not minimize the person’s feelings or offer simple solutions.
5. Do not leave the person alone.
6. Do not point out how much better off he or she is than others.
7. Do not suggest drugs and alcohol.
What to do:
1. Take suicide threats seriously.
2. Ask questions.
3. Listen in a non-judgmental way.
4. Take action – get the individual connected with professional help.
– Joan Gandy
