Scholarship Speech - Year 4

Last night we presented the Emma Jane von Euler Music Scholarship for the 3rd year.  It is one more emotional hurdle for us in a week full of hurdles that we need to get through every year, including: Father's Day, the anniversary of Emma's death, the presentation of the scholarships, the end of the school year for Peter, our wedding anniversary, and Emma's birthday. We try hard to find as much peace, meaning, or joy in each of these milestones as we can. That is how we survive. 

Here is this year's scholarship presentation speech:

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Good evening. My name is Nancy von Euler and this is my husband Peter. When we established this scholarship 4 years ago we had 3 goals in mind. First, we wanted to celebrate our daughter's rich, if too short, life. Second, we wanted to provide a little help and encouragement to our award winners that we hope will help them achieve their dreams. And, lastly, we wanted to use the award presentation as an opportunity to share some information that maybe, just maybe, would save a young person's life. 

Our daughter, Emma, was a bright, beautiful, and talented young woman. She LOVED music! She danced, sang, and played the flute, piccolo, saxophone, clarinet, and guitar. By the age of 16, she had performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, West Point, and Canterbury Cathedral. She dreamed of a life as a professional musician. Emma was also kind and compassionate. She was a defender of underdogs everywhere and always had a shoulder for her friends to lean on.  

Emma died by suicide. She is not alone. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34. Suicide claims nearly as many lives each year as breast cancer; and as of 2010, more people in the United States lost their lives to suicide than in car accidents.

Now, I just attended a driver's ed class with my younger daughter, so I know that most of you have a healthy appreciation for the risks of driving.  If you are a woman, I’d be willing to bet that you have been told about the risk factors for breast cancer and taught how to do a breast self-exam. But, I suspect that you know very little about the risk factors for suicide.  You probably think of suicide as being an extreme reaction to a failed relationship, lost job, or family crisis. The truth is, in 90% of deaths by suicide, the underlying cause is a diagnosable, although sometimes undiagnosed, mental illness.  

The good news is mental illness is treatable. But to be treated, you need to seek help. You have to take your mental health as seriously as you take your physical health.   So, here is what I want all of you to do. When you step onto the campus of your new school next fall, find out where the health center and the counseling center are. Chances are they were not pointed out when you went on your campus tour. If you are an over-achiever, as I suspect many of you here tonight are, go in; find out what the hours are and what services they offer; introduce yourself to the staff; get comfortable and familiar. That way, should you ever not feel well, physically OR mentally, you'll know just where to go, and just who to ask for.  

Fairfield Warde High School

This year’s scholarship winner is a violinist who is a member of the Tri-M music honor society and performs with the Greater Bridgeport Youth Orchestra. She is active in the community, organizing benefit concerts and serving as the assistant youth choir director for a Bridgeport church.  She looks forward to studying music and history in college. We are thrilled to present the Emma Jane von Euler Music Scholarship to Bridget Halstead.

Fairfield Ludlowe High School

This year’s scholarship winner is a talented vocalist who has been selected to the Tri-M music honor society, All-State Choir, and Close Harmony. She has been active in the community, putting in over 250 hours of service with Wakeman’s Keystone Club and singing with her church choir. We are thrilled to present the Emma Jane von Euler Music Scholarship to Timoney Campbell.

Mrs. v E goes to Washington

On June 12th I will travel to Washington for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's annual advocacy forum. I have been serving as an AFSP field advocate for about 3 years, but this is my first time participating in the forum. I will be meeting with all of our CT delegation; talking to them about my experience and sharing ideas about what we can do as a nation to prevent suicide and improve mental health.

As part of our forum preparation, AFSP asked us to write up vignettes that could be included in the packets that will be left with legislative staff. Even though much of the content is from stuff I've written before, I thought I would share mine here.

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On June 17, 2009 my precious 17-year-old daughter, Emma Jane, passed away. Emma was beautiful, bright, and articulate, with an effervescent personality. She was a talented musician who shared her musical gifts generously and participated in every musical ensemble she could fit into her schedule. She was a caring daughter, sister, and friend and a bright light in the lives of many, many people.

Emma took her own life.

When Emma killed herself she created a tsunami of destruction that swept up family, friends, teachers, ministers, mentors and neighbors. All of us struggled against the current of guilt, pain, shock and bewilderment. For her immediate family: her father, sister and me, life as we knew it ended.

I’m not sure we will ever fully understand why Emma ended her life; what caused what must have been an incredibly deep sense of despair and hopelessness; or why she couldn’t reach out to us or to the many other caring adults and professionals she had in her life. Nonetheless, in the days, weeks and months after Emma’s death I turned to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to learn more about suicide and to search for clues that would help explain why my beautiful, bright, talented daughter was gone from our lives.

The facts that I discovered about suicide shocked and alarmed me. Suicide claims close to 39,000 lives in the United States, which is nearly as many as breast cancer and more than twice as many as HIV/AIDS. According to the CDC, suicide was the second leading cause of death for children ages 12-17 in 2010. With statistics like those, how is it that no one; not our schools, not our pediatrician, not even Emma’s therapist of three years, had talked to us about suicide and alerted us to the warning signs? If my husband and I knew the warning signs, would we have been able to get her the right help? My daughter’s pediatrician saw Emma just 3 weeks before her death for a hormonal disorder that can cause depression. Had she understood the risk of suicide in teens like Emma, would she have treated that disorder more aggressively or, perhaps, referred her to a psychiatrist for an assessment? If her therapist, who she saw the night before she ended her life, had had specific training in assessment of suicide risk, would she have picked up a sign that would have allowed us to intervene before it was too late?

I became involved with AFSP as a field advocate because I believe we can do a better job of preventing suicide. We can raise awareness about suicide prevention and mental illness and reduce the stigma that prevents people from seeking help. We can get all the information we already know about suicide prevention into the hands of the people who are best positioned to identify and intervene with those at risk: school personnel, primary care physicians, and behavioral health providers. We can fund research that will unlock remaining mysteries about suicide and mental illnesses and lead to safer and more effective treatments.  If we join together to do these things, I know we can save lives.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Emma and remember the gift that she was in our lives. Working on behalf of AFSP is my way of honoring her and thanking her for the many beautiful memories that I treasure.

A Happy St. Pat's to You

I distinctly remember St. Patrick's Day the year Emma was in kindergarten. The week before St. Patrick's Day, Emma's kindergarten teacher began telling her students stories about the mischievous leprechaun that visited her classroom each year. Each year, she told them, the leprechaun visited the night before St. Patrick's Day and overturned desks, mixed up books on the bookshelves, and scattered supplies around the room - a very naughty leprechaun! I gathered that most of her kindergarteners loved these stories and looked forward to seeing the havoc wreaked in their classroom by the naughty leprechaun. They admired the leprechaun's chutzpah (can leprechauns have chutzpah?), and looked forward to living vicariously through the leprechaun's naughtiness. Emma was less sure. Emma liked things to be predictable, orderly, and well-behaved. She came home telling stories about the naughty leprechaun with a mixture of excitement and dread. She liked the fantasy part of the story, but did the leprechaun have to make a mess? More importantly, she wanted to know if the leprechaun was going to come make a mess of her house. No, we reassured her, certainly not. She did not find us totally convincing.

When Emma woke up for school the morning of St. Patrick's Day, magic was afoot. Outside her bedroom door was a giant shamrock with some gold foil wrapped candy on top of it. Emma excitedly followed a trail of shamrocks and candy that led down the hallway and into the kitchen. On the kitchen table were more shamrocks and a little gift at Emma's and Sarah's places.  "We have a leprechaun!" Emma squealed with delight. 

Emma was excited to head off to school that morning. She couldn't wait to tell her teacher that she had a leprechaun, too, and that her leprechaun was nice, not naughty.

From that time on, Emma always looked forward to the leprechaun's visits. In fact, every year, even when she was 16 years old, a few days before St. Patrick's Day she would ask me, "Mom, do you think the leprechaun will come again this year?" It was a gentle reminder that even when life got busy, there was always room for a little St. Patrick's Day magic.

A happy St. Pat's to you, Emmie Lou. And for the record, the leprechaun still visits.