Dedication to a young First Nations Woman: we can do better.

To open this blog, I would like to share a short story from the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention Conference, held in Niagara Falls, Ontario in October. 

Usually conferences are opened by government dignitaries or experts and researchers, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the first speaker of the day assume the stage:  a petite First Nation's woman who spoke with gravity.  Her name was Elaine Johnston and she was the director of a First Nations community health center in northern Ontario (http://www.mnaamodzawin.com) 

I had heard of "suicide problems" in the First Nation communities of Canada, but didn't quite understand that it was one with sorrows possibly deeper than in any other community on our earth.  One young man I spoke to shared that he had lost two sisters to suicide.  A woman from a community of 1,250 people in a remote area of northern Quebec told me that her community had suffered seven teenage suicide deaths in 2012.  Sorrow, loss, and trauma hardly express the situation here.  Coping?  How can they when they can only be scared of who is next. 

On this day in October, Elaine assumed the stage and shared that when her niece had died from suicide, Elaine asked her grandmothers for guidance in a dream.  The dream came and the grandmothers told her that the spirit of suicide was both dark and light.  The dark spirit of suicide is the spirit of grief, depression and hopelessness.  They advised her that this spirit was walking rampant throughout her community but must be contained.  They told her that giving it a place at her table, an empty chair, would give it a place to stay so it wouldn't walk freely throughout her community.

But the grandmothers also told her that suicide has a light spirit, the side that teaches those left behind what it means to be human.  An example of this light body was the the good work of people to organize this conference dedicating to preventing suicide. Another example was the work her sister did after her niece died, to educate and support the young people in her community.  

Her story touched me and has inspired me to learn from what has gone wrong, to do better for the young people of the future, to learn all that I can from the light spirit side of suicide.  

This blog is dedicated to the memory of this young First Nation's woman, and all the other young people who have lost their lives because the society they grew up in did not give them the support, the knowledge, the direction or the compassion needed to move them through their most difficult moment. 

We can do better.  There are tools at our fingertips that can help us reach people in distress like we have never done before.  It is not time to naysay or to be fearful of technology and what it can do to reach those who need help.  The stakes are too high. 

photo credit: Trevor Dennis via photopin cc