Time to be a light in the darkness

Ten Canadians will end their lives by suicide today.

Ten did yesterday. Ten will tomorrow, and the day after that, and again and again and again. And for every 10 who succeeded, 200 others tried, again and again and again.

When you hold your first child for the first time and marvel at the perfection, the world seems so much brighter, like a light has been turned on, bathing the world in a beauty you had never seen before.

You imagine nothing but the best and know the world is a better place because s/he is here.

As you sit in the hospital nursery, rocking life incarnate, can you imagine a time when you will find that child convulsing on the floor with black guck running out of his nose?

Can you see yourself cradling him in your arms, repeating again and again: I have you, my son, I have you?

Can you feel the icy finger of fears drive into your stomach, twisting your innards like spaghetti on a fork; can you feel your heart slamming against your chest as you pray to a god you don’t believe that the ambulance will arrive in time?

It does, but the world appears more than surreal as you sit in the passenger seat of the ambulance as it screams through traffic in slow motion and listen to the paramedic swear at drivers too stupid to get out of the way.

And when he finally opens his eyes in the hospital ER, weak-kneed relief turns back into more fear when he says: “I’m just sorry I woke up.”

What can you say? How can you imagine the depth of the pain that causes someone to attempt to take his life and regret failing.

Many parents never get to hear these words because their child doesn’t wake up; their child succeeded.

And even if the child wakes up, there is still the knife pressing against your heart that his darkness and despair will descend again and he will try again – and succeed, just like the 10 people who did yesterday and will again today.

For each of those deaths, seven to 10 survivors are profoundly affected. That means 100 people are in incredible pain today, in shock, numbed by the enormity of their loss. Part of their heart has been amputated and they know it will never grow back.

There were 3,926 suicides in 2016 in this country. In 2015, more than 3.4 million Canadians aged 12 and over had suicidal thoughts.

Monday was World Suicide Prevention Day and Victim Services and Okanagan Suicide Awareness Society asked the public to show their support for every life touched by suicide by lighting a candle and putting it near a window at 8 p.m.

We, as a society, should be shining a light every day on this problem of death by suicide, which has grown by 60 per cent in recent years, and not pretend it isn’t happening or if it is, it’s a private not a public one.

The media are also complicit in suppressing that growing problem because if there is death, even if it’s public, and it is a suicide, it doesn’t get covered.

About 15 years ago, when three teens took their lives with a few weeks, The Daily Courier attempted to shine a light on the problem. That was so unusual that Global News, then CHBC, did a story on it.

Fortunately, that attitude is changing and on Saturday at UBC Okanagan, Mysterious Barricades is helping bring a mental health problem out into the open.

It is fostering hope and healing through music.

It will live-stream 13 concerts from across the country. The UBCO live concert will start at 5 p.m. in the ballroom.

The Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and local musicians will perform and Kelowna philanthropist Thomas Budd, who lost two sons to suicide, is a guest speaker.

We should, as the Buddha urged, be a lamp onto ourselves, but we can also be a light, a candle, an eternal flame that ensures this problem is never again hidden in the dark.