The wisdom of children

“I pledge to live, honor and protect myself from any harm. To love my life, my family, my friends and my village. Today we stand together to stop suicide in Alaska.”

That’s the pledge taken by members of the Tanana 4-H Club.

Aside from a summer in the canneries of Cordova, I have not lived off the road system in rural Alaska. I don’t pretend to be an authority on village life, but in my other job I work with a lot of students from these communities. Like students everywhere, some from the villages like to engage in gossip and drama. This is a common, human indulgence. However, I have also found that this is tempered by a cultural respect for elders and a reluctance to challenge authority or the status quo.

With this in mind it is nothing short of quixotic that a group of youngsters from Tanana has taken it upon themselves to address an issue that the older folks have chosen not to air — the subject of suicide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alaska consistently ranks No. 1 in the nation for suicide with rate of 23.4 per 100,000 people. That same study found that it is the second leading cause of death among Alaska natives ages 15 to 34. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find someone from these villages who doesn’t know or who isn’t related to someone who had at least attempted to kill him or herself.

Several years ago, Cynthia Erickson was in the process of grieving one too many suicides and decided to do something about it. Her response was to start the Tanana 4-H Club. It would be a place where children and young adults could come together and support each other in culturally reliant activities.

A trip to the 4-H website tells you the H’s stand for head, heart, hands and health, and symbolize the four values members work on through different programs relevant to their community. The club from Tanana might just add another H for heroism, because the young people of that group are helping lead the fight in that community.

Members of the Tanana 4-H Club haven’t done anything complicated. In fact, it is pretty simple and straightforward. Instead of forming committees and having meetings and conducting studies, seven members from Tanana simply stood up and said enough. At this year’s Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Fairbanks, they stood before their community with signs and testimony that shed light on a subject most of us don’t care to look at.

Written on the back of poster board were words like “My dad’s suicide,” “Family death” and “Alcohol & drugs” that spoke volumes more than any study or committee could ever hope to do. When they did speak, they didn’t quote authorities or brandish statistics. That was left to columnists and cartoonists. They just told their personal stories. No hand-wringing. No pontificating. Just lay it out there for everyone to look at. Coming from a culture that shies away from bringing attention to one’s self, this took no small amount of courage.

Dermot Cole, writing for the Alaska Dispatch, quotes convention members like 11-year-old Violet, who lost her father to suicide.

She said, “Take care of your family and friends, because none of you want to go through what I went through. And it only made everything harder, because at the time many of my family members were abusing drugs and alcohol. And it hurt me more because instead of talking about it, they thought that drugs and alcohol would help. But it doesn’t. If anything, it makes it worse.”

That seems to be the crux of this issue — drugs, alcohol and a reluctance to air dirty laundry. The seven from Tanana 4-H chose to break the silence and force everyone to look square into their young faces. They are the faces of those left behind who have to deal with the pain.

Cole also quotes adults like Rob Sanderson Jr. of Ketchikan who said, “We cannot keep coming up here year after year, continuing to say that the numbers are rising. We must draw a line in the sand at the local level. Call out the people who hurt our women and children.”

And P. J. Simon from Allakaket who believes drugs and alcohol are the root cause of suicide and abuse in the villages. Mr. Simon said: “At the very local level, we need to turn in our bootleggers and the dope peddlers because we all know who they are. That takes courage. That’s what we need to do to protect our young.”

I am not here advocating prohibition. Instead, I would champion awareness. Depression, substance abuse and mental illness all carry a stigma that makes us want to relegate them to the shadows. We would prefer not to look at things that make us uncomfortable. What these young warriors from Tanana have done is drag these monsters out into the light. The Tanana 4-H Club stands there for all of us to see and maybe, hopefully, acknowledge. After all is said and done, that simple act could be the most profound.

Chuck Legge is a freelance political cartoonist and community columnist who lives in Sutton.