Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

No hal­ibut on deck here… Con­sis­tent storms have teth­ered us to the dock for two weeks, wait­ing out weath­er like 45 knot winds and 22-foot seas. We take it for what it is – what else can you do? – but watch­ing steady gray sheets pour­ing down the cab­in win­dows gets old.

So I go for a walk.

South­east Alaska’s sec­ond annu­al Walk for Life is sched­uled to gath­er at Cres­cent Har­bor at 12:30. Scop­ing the scene from across the street, I see three peo­ple hud­dled against snarling wind and icy shards of rain. Oh, man… But tak­ing a pub­lic stand against sui­cide seems espe­cial­ly nec­es­sary on such a grim day. I yank my hood up and head over.

Oth­ers feel sim­i­lar urgency. Over the next half-hour, about 50 peo­ple fill the har­bor shel­ter: cane-bear­ing elders, bun­dled chil­dren, young cou­ples. Orga­niz­ers from the South­East Alas­ka Region­al Health Con­sor­tium (SEARHC) hand out T‑shirts embla­zoned with The Watch­man, a sym­bol of courage designed by Tlin­git artist Robert Hoffmann.

I’ve nev­er worn a T‑shirt over two coats before,” mus­es social work­er Mag­gie Gallin.

With every­one decked out and ready to march, SEARHC Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram Man­ag­er Wilbur Brown calls for our atten­tion. “If you’ve been around Alas­ka at all,” he begins, “you know there’s a lot of sui­cides here.”

A lot of sui­cides… Statewide, Alas­ka dou­bles the nation­al aver­age, while rates in remote Arc­tic vil­lages are up to sev­en times high­er.  From our moun­tains, salmon, and bears, to our chem­i­cal depen­den­cy, domes­tic vio­lence, and despair, we have it all big­ger, badder.

Wilbur explains that Walk for Life is a response to those stag­ger­ing loss­es. Ini­ti­at­ed in Kotze­bue, the first walk took place in 2009. (150 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in near­by Ambler – almost half of the Kobuk Riv­er village’s pop­u­la­tion.) In 2011, Tes­sa Bald­win, a Kotze­bue teenag­er, inspired South­east Alas­ka to join. One year lat­er, the pre­ven­tion effort has been embraced statewide. “Peo­ple are walk­ing for life all over South­east today – peo­ple are walk­ing in Angoon, Hoonah, Kake, Kla­wock, every­where. We’re walk­ing to cel­e­brate life and say no to suicide.”

SEARHC Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram Man­ag­er Wilbur Brown.

So we walk. Led by a police escort, we march through an inter­sec­tion (one of Sitka’s two stop­lights) and down the main drag, wind­ing around Saint Michael’s Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church and turn­ing to par­al­lel the chan­nel. We hold up traf­fic. One dri­ver leans out her win­dow with a smile. “What is this?” Her smile wash­es away with the answer.

We file into the Sheet­ka Kwaan Naa Kahi­di house, where Wilbur opens the cer­e­mo­ny. He hopes that through events like these, we might lessen the taboo of talk­ing about sui­cide. “Alaska’s high­est sui­cide rates are among young men. And what do we teach our young men? We teach them not to talk, not to feel, not to com­mu­ni­cate. We want to show them there’s anoth­er way.”

One of those ways may be through cul­tur­al revi­tal­iza­tion. For the next sev­er­al hours, Naa Kahi­di puls­es with tradition’s heart­beat. Accom­pa­nied by a sin­gle drum, four Ravens stand at the stage edge, voic­es raised in a sor­row song shared by Hoonah’s Sea Pigeon clan. A group of Eagles respond, keen­ing loss that pierces through the rafters, through time and place, through language.

Nod­ding with the beat, I glance at the ink on my left fore­arm. Part of me for 13 years, this tat­too usu­al­ly demands about as much con­scious con­sid­er­a­tion as a pinky toe, but in this set­ting, the Vik­tor Fran­kl quote seems to glow. That which seeks to give light must endure burning.

I remem­ber burn­ing… Sit­ting mute in the psychiatrist’s office, con­sumed by blis­ter­ing lone­li­ness, res­olute. (Nine years old, I’d already aced my family’s lessons on silence.) Anoth­er life­time trapped with­in that flame. Alliances with alco­hol, friends whose angst mir­rored my own. Skin carved like pie crust to relieve the steam within.

I remem­ber light… Blink­ing against new­ly bro­ken dawn as I stag­gered into my tribe. Peo­ple who offered hope, con­nec­tion, the thrill of com­mu­ni­ty. We strolled bold amongst drag­ons, con­fi­dent we’d pass through with­out a scorch.

It’s been sev­en years since I was a prac­tic­ing social work­er. I exchanged the path of tend­ing lives for one of tak­ing life, hunt­ing fish half the year, yet still I find myself whis­per­ing the names of those we lost. The young man who com­mit­ted sui­cide by cop. The young woman who hung her­self in jail. In a hos­pi­tal. In a garage. With an over­dose. With a shot­gun. After being kicked out of the fam­i­ly for being gay. After seem­ing to have made it, what­ev­er “made it” meant. Those we lost, and those we might have. Those whose despair feast­ed like par­a­sites, those who crooked their fin­gers to death and silent­ly screamed please.

I remem­ber the hiss of light gut­ter­ing out, echoed by the mechan­i­cal slurp of a stom­ach pump. By then I’d learned that if I sat very qui­et­ly – as still as the dead – and wiped my expres­sion moun­tain stream clean, the ER per­son­nel would let me stay with the kid I’d brought in. Study­ing the steady extrac­tion of a young woman’s stom­ach con­tents, grainy residue awash in waves of Pep­si Blue, I won­dered how I’d ever dared imag­ine I’d side­step burn-out.

Back in Naa Kahi­di, six drum­mers gath­er around the Hasha­goon drum, cen­tered on the main floor. “We’re going to do a song to hon­or those who’ve passed away from sui­cide,” one explains. “Please remove any head cov­er­ings and stand if you’re able to do so. You’re wel­come to join us to dance if you’d like.”

A cir­cle forms around the drum­mers. I study the pairs of Xtra Tufs and sneak­ers, all mov­ing with dif­fer­ing degrees of cer­tain­ty and grace. Shuf­fle, toe, step, toe, knees flex, shuf­fle. As the faces of my dead and might-have-beens shim­mer against the dancers’ feet, it’s easy to med­i­tate on the loss­es bind­ing us.

But a child careens through the room. Arms out­stretched and a grin wide enough to swal­low the sun, he runs against the stream on socked feet. He’s shirt­less, a clan robe around his shoul­ders, clasped with five pearl but­tons span­ning his nar­row chest. The robe is a stun­ning piece of regalia, a red and black link to his his­to­ry, but today it’s a cape stream­ing behind him and he’s Super­man. He runs faster – he flies – the embod­i­ment of joy, curios­i­ty, and light. He shoves grief aside, inflates us all with his buoyancy.

I leave Naa Kahi­di want­i­ng to believe that lit­tle boy will keep fly­ing. That the drag­ons who reduced so many oth­er heroes’ capes to charred ash will leave him be. I hope he grows up know­ing how to ask for help, that the only shame is in silence. I hope he learns there’s anoth­er way.

If you or some­one you know is feel­ing sui­ci­dal, please talk to some­one. Here in South­east, con­tact SEARHC’s Helpline at 1 – 877-294‑0074. Nation­wide, call the Nation­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line at 1.800.784.2433. Be well.