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“Emily Soosay is grieving the loss of her 22-year-old son Luwen Soosay-Morin, who took his life two days before Christmas. Saturday she attended a vigil for a celebration of life following a wave of recent deaths by suicide in her home community of Maskwacis, Alta.
She doesn’t want anyone else to die, in what she calls an “epidemic.”
“I am broken, hurt. I’m lost. I’m crying out for guidance,” she said.
“Right now our nation is in a state of crisis. We’re in need of help bad. We are dying. […] The chief should call a state of emergency.”
She has lost several family members and friends to suicide over the years — Soosay’s cousin also took her life just two weeks after her son. She was too traumatized to attend her cousin’s funeral.
Maskwacis Indian Health Services mental health worker Rick Lightning said there have been 14 deaths by suicide within the four nations that make up Maskwacis since December 2017. He also believes local leadership should call a state of emergency because help is desperately needed.
“It’s a cultural crisis and spirituality. There’s a spirit here. At night sometimes I can feel the heaviness creep over the land, the dark side running around knocking on the doors and the windows looking for its next victim.”
Lightning has witnessed the numbers of suicides rise while growing up in the community with a population of approximately 17,000, and has been personally affected by it.
His own daughter and granddaughter died by suicide three years ago. At that time suicide was also rampant in Maskwacis with an estimated 70 people taking their lives in less than six months.
“When I was a young kid my dad used to get up at sunrise. He’d sing and he’d pray. He’d say ‘I’m not alone. There’s many other old people out there that are doing the same as me. We keep the dark side out of here,'” said Lightning.”
– CBC News, ‘We are dying’: Maskwacis community members overwhelmed by suicides.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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