Reflections on saying goodbye

Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

I’M WRITING this in blue and golden afternoon light, following the funeral of a childhood friend, who ended his life. Funerals are complicated and surreal, full of loss, tender memories and reminders about how hard and precious each day can be.

Family and friends hold each other close, and people who have lived long know that even while a community comes together around one of its own, so much isn’t said, so much remains to be felt, so much is still to be accepted and understood. One who is loved is always loved, even after they are gone, though grief accompanies remembering.

I’m home now, wondering how to feel about the day. The sky is gently turning orange over the central plains, and I hope that his spirit rose in the pyre’s flames and smoke, and has found peace in an atmosphere filled with such beauty.

Depression is difficult to comprehend and requires great compassion, a kind of bigness of heart that recognises that we may share the same spaces, but experience them very differently. It requires not judging someone’s inability to cope with what has been described as a remorseless foe with whom one struggles every day, and sometimes loses the war.

Depression also has no single face. It affects rich and poor, those who appear to be full of laughter, and those who have become more silent. It can result from circumstances and trauma, but also be genetic and related to brain chemistry. Suicide may be less about mental disorder than about unhappiness. Each person can tell their own story.

People may want others to know or they may prefer privacy and confidentiality. Those contemplating suicide sometimes perfect a mask which can be hard to see through. Despite struggling, they may not want to cause worry. Reaching out may be a call for help or an expression of hopelessness and unbearable pain. There are not always clear signs.

On the other hand, families may not want to overly interfere or may simply have no idea that they should intervene, when or even how. Hindsight is always rife with difficult insights and feelings.

As I write, I know many who can identify. As you read, be gentle with those whom you know and yourself. The world is being changed so that we can talk openly about mental health, so that neither those living with depression or their families need to remain silent or feel stigmatised. These incremental gains could save lives. It’s why I’m writing this column at the close of a strange, sad and unsettled day.

I reached out to Maria Divina O’Brien of Mindwise, an inspiring NGO seeking to reduce stigma and to improve mental health awareness, services and resources in the region, through collaboration with a range of partners, including the Ministry of Health and PAHO/WHO.

The non-profit has a specific focus on design and use of digital technologies, community engagement, youth development, film and new media events, and volunteer recruitment. It’s led by a handful of young professionals who have developed a National Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS) Directory of Services of TT as part of the Technical Working Group of our MHPSS network. Just type FindCareTT.com in Google.

They are developing a Youth Gatekeepers Suicide Prevention Programme with regional and local youth leadership organisations as partners. As well, their goal is to create more community spaces and resources for mental healthcare in order to provide help where people are.

In particular, their continued partnership and work for the PAHO/WHO #DoYourShare campaign is precisely about breaking silences that leave others wondering how they did not know and how much more they might have helped if they did.

With 15-29-year-olds being a primary at-risk group post-pandemic, Mindwise has created the First Citizens Sustainable Minds Volunteer Programme, sponsored by First Citizens, together with PAHO/WHO, Google Women Techmakers, UWI and Nalis.

For Maria, suicide is preventable through sustainable solutions like www.preventsuicidett.com and www.findcarett.com. Passionate about creating sustainable mental health, she gave me greater understanding and hope.

When you are children together, you do not know how adulthood will unfold and how each person’s story will end. It’s odd to be on the other side of such knowledge now.

Yet, as night descends on family and friends’ goodbye, my final feeling is that, in all he was and all he gave, even someone who has chosen to end life lives on in innumerable, beloved and undying ways.

Entry 521

Diary of a mothering worker

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