The last time I ever saw Terry Elliott, he was a budding 16-year-old with the confidence of a star quarterback. Terry, myself and a group of about 16 other high school students were just finishing up a week-long journalism camp, and he emotionally recited a poem telling us how much he would miss us.
He was like a little brother to me: We shared similar struggles, had similar career interests and even had the same bad newsroom habits that always seemed to get us in trouble. I planned on keeping in touch with him and helping him through his last two years in high school. Before we all left, I made sure to let Terry know to stay in touch. I always knew that one day he would be someone.
But that was over two years ago. Now the mere thought of Terry often brings tears to my eyes. On Feb. 23, 2009, just eight months after the last time I saw him, Terry Elliott committed suicide. We were all blown away.
“It’s like a family; we lost a member of that family,” camp attendee Tiffany Pok said.
It was all so sudden, and it didn’t make sense: Terry was one of the most confident and happiest people I’d ever met. His smile was radiant and infectious and everyone loved him; but behind that smile and popularity lay internal chaos we could never understand.
Terry’s world was devoid of a family presence. In his sophomore year in high school, his mother was in and out of drug rehab, and his siblings were forced to fend for themselves. When Terry tried to go live with his father, he was eventually kicked out with no place to go.
At the tender age of 16, an age when most of us were sneaking out with friends and contemplating prom dates, Terry was homeless. When he couldn’t find a friend’s house to sleep at for the night, Terry would be forced to stay at a park.
Through it all, Terry somehow managed to do pretty well in school, and he still presented himself like any other teenager.
“He was a good kid, everyone knew him,” Pok said.
When Terry applied to go to the journalism camp, we knew that he was a talented kid who wanted to learn to write for a week — but we didn’t know that another reason he wanted to do the camp was because he had no place else to be.
At camp, he met 17 students who showed him what family was like. We laughed together, we shared life stories together, we made fun of each other and then we made even more fun of each other. Terry’s roommate Caesar Santizo remembers how well-versed Terry was in the art of dis:
“I pointed out that an American Eagle sweater he had hanging in his closet was exactly like one I had at home. He simply looked at it, turned to me with a sarcastic grin on his face and bragged, ‘Yeah, but you know I make it look better,’” Santizo said.
Yep. That sounds like Terry.
At the camp, Terry was introduced to Annika Wolters, and they became inseparable.
“The first time we met I just couldn’t stop looking at him,” Wolters said. “It was honestly a life-changing week that we spent up there.” Needless to say, the two spent the camp trapped in googly-eyed love.
As the week-long program wrapped up, Terry again had no place to go. His father made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with Terry, and his mother was in rehab. But Annika’s mother was willing to take him in. Although it was only supposed to be a two-week gig, Terry eventually moved from Portland, to a small city in Washington by the name of Ilwaco to live with Annika and her family.
Her mother was very supportive, and Terry became accustomed to the concept of a stable family life. He was doing all those little things he never got to do with his mother and father.
“It was like having a little kid. He’d just light up about everything. He was so excited,” said Char Wolters, Annika’s mom. Terry attended Ilwaco High School, earned good marks and was a star athlete. But when things soured between Annika and Terry after a rumor circulated that Terry was unfaithful, Terry’s situation once again became uncertain.
The young love between Terry and Annika became strained, and they didn’t know how to handle it. Annika locked up, and Terry panicked. Uncertainty and insecurity came back to haunt him. Terry was already struggling with depression.
The last night Annika was with Terry, he asked her for a hug, and then told her he would be right back.
But he never returned. By the time Char found Terry he was already dead — hung from the rafters of their cabin.
There was no note. No nothing.
“All I could hear was this scream,” Annika said. When Char told her Terry was gone, Annika couldn’t do anything but fall to the floor and cry. She couldn’t even stand.
In that moment, all of our lives were changed: Char lost a son, Annika lost a lover, and I lost a brother. Everyone surrounding him felt emptier than ever, and large memorials were held at Franklin High School and Ilwaco High School. We all wondered what we could have told him to make him feel like life was worth living, and even though we all know it wasn’t our faults, we all subconsciously think of it. It is burned into our existences.
At the age of 17, Terry Elliott was full of potential, strong-willed and loved by many. But now, he’s gone. Forever.
Becky Metrick contributed reporting to this column.
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