Rian's Tree
Festival of Trees of Lights 2025
Thanksgiving weekend I attended the Festival of Trees Trees and Lights at the downtown Des Moines Iowa Events Center. The annual event is the largest fundraiser for Blank Children’s Hospital and I’ve attended with my family for nearly ten years to kick off the holiday season. The event features beautifully decorated trees with personal or heartfelt themes, or business brands, and are sponsored by local organizations, companies, and individual families. We started attending after our daughter lost a beloved classmate to cancer, and her family decorated a tree in her memory.
This year, though, I saw something new represented at the festival:
Mental Health.
There were trees from multiple mental healthcare organizations, therapists, and two in memory of a loved one lost to suicide, including a middle-aged father, and young woman from my community.
In September 2024, I published a Gaps article titled “I Don’t Want Her Name To Be Forgotten” in which I interviewed Heather Van Gorp, mother of Rian, about her daughter’s death the previous spring from suicide. Heather was generous and open in sharing Rian’s story with me, and it’s the only piece of writing I’ve ever had go viral, resonating with thousands of readers.
Even though I never met Rian, I will always remember her name. ~
Inspiration for this Tree
Who was Rian Van Gorp?
She was a daughter, sister, niece, coworker and friend. A bright light in the darkest parts of life. She had multiple friend groups that were all connected because of her. Rian stood at the center of them. She loved her friends, family, and coworkers deeply. Rian gave herself freely to others when they were feeling down. It didn’t matter if she knew them or not. People felt safe with her. She wanted everyone around her to be happy.
Rian wore a beautiful smile and a contagious laugh, but underneath was a darkness she battled for years. Anxiety and depression are heavy burdens to carry. They consumed her and made her believe she wasn’t enough. She cried, she tried to numb the pain, and she worked tirelessly to survive each day.
Our home was a place where we shared our feelings openly and talked about difficult things. I helped her get connected with therapy and medication management, but she was frustrated with the “experts” because she felt unheard. She saw them make quick assumptions and refuse to see beyond their first conclusion. Rian was heartbroken by our broken mental health system. We talked about it often and imagined how it could be better. She understood it more deeply than most because she was living it every day.
Eventually, the darkness won and Rian lost her battle. She was only 20 years old. We are losing our loved ones at an unbearable pace, leaving families with shattered pieces that will never fit together again. The devastation is beyond words. I miss her every second of every day. I will continue to fight for a better mental health system in her name.
This is Rian’s Story.
Mental health matters.
Thank you to ALL my subscribers and supporters who make this column possible!
I’m a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative with my “Gaps” column.
We’re a group of writers who contribute commentary and feature stories of interest for those who care about Iowa and beyond.
Click here to meet our writers and column topics.
Or, check out our weekend IWC Roundup and new mid-week Flipside edition!
My forays into receiving mental health counseling have been not great. The counseling I could afford meant that I kept losing therapists on a regular basis as they were doing this as a side hustle and left when they could no longer juggle the second job or they got a better first job and didn't want to keep the second one. I don't blame them, but boy, it's tough to be on the receiving end of the revolving door of care.
It's hard enough to show up at a therapist's office the first time when you grow up being told that Christians don't have problems and "Jesus (or the Bible) is all you need." You shakily begin to tell your story and at the next session, your therapist says, "I'm leaving this job." So, you have to start all over again. This happened to me three times, and I had to drive an hour to get to the therapist's office each time there was a change at different locations.
There are too many Rians around us, and we're losing far too many. Thank you for sharing her story, Kali.