Am I my brother's keeper?
The question keeps rising in my mind while reading the news this week. The original question was posed to God by Cain after killing his brother. I think the short answer was "yes." We are to be the keepers of our brothers and sisters.
When life wasn't as easy in Alaska we seemed to take better care of each other. We relied on each other because of the difficulties of navigation without electronics, the lack of cellphones, very limited communications, and it was a time before anyone had a friends list on the Internet. We all had to know our neighbors, and look after them the way we hoped they would look out for us.
I realize I sound like I'm 80 years old, pining for the good old days of pie auctions when someone got sick and every truck having a tow strap or jumper cables in the back. (Don't they?) Maybe I am showing my age. I liked meeting hitchhikers, and I caught more rides by putting my thumb out than I can remember.
That's all stuff of memory and nostalgia I suppose.
What is literally killing us is that we've forgotten how to take care of each other. Like you, I watched the headlines come for way too many days about the suicides in Hooper Bay. Four souls in 16 days left us by choice. How are we supporting Hooper Bay and every other town where people have gone through this tragedy? How are we protecting each other when we have an epidemic of suicide -- the highest in the nation?
Bill Hutton, an educator from Sitka, wrote this in Alaska Dispatch News Oct. 13: "Take a minute, a few minutes, today, maybe tomorrow, next month, a year from now -- as many times as possible -- and think about what the proud people of Hooper Bay must be feeling. And wish them hope and better days. Maybe if enough of us Alaskans wish, something good will happen -- or maybe just something tragic won't happen. Maybe there's power in the collective desire to help Hooper Bay, even if we can't be there."
Students at the University of Alaska Anchorage posted a picture of a large group of students making heart shapes with their hands. "Our thoughts are with Hooper Bay" was written across the top with two hearts.
Thoughts and prayers ...
A teacher from the Galena Interior Youth Academy, Paul Apfelbeck, went further in a comment beneath Hutton's commentary: "My promise is to do more than pray and grieve. I've lost about two dozen students to suicide, which breaks me up when I think about it. There are students right now in my school, and people right now in my community, who are isolated, alone, friendless, and without someone to hear their words. It's probably impossible for one person to stop this epidemic and loss, but it is well within my power to offer compassion to reach out to those who feel outcast and alone."
Valerie Haney wrote a letter to the editor, published Oct. 16, and brought up the change from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day as perhaps a symbolic start to honoring the cultures in our state who deserve respect. I really appreciate how she is trying to find some way to break the dam between the loss of hope too many of our brothers and sisters suffer from, and our collective community response.
For the past several days I have been waiting for news, along with other friends, about a missing man in Western Alaska. He and his boat disappeared while making a fuel run from Egegik to Ugashik. Waiting is hard, and no matter what anyone says to his wife, it's impossible to make it bearable.
How do we take care of each other when things are this hard? Alaska, for all your glory, you present us with challenges and hardships that are pretty unique.
This is really hard. All Alaskans have to do hard things. We are already doing hard things. Hard things like trying to comfort families and communities. Hard things like burying each other.
Taking care of each other shouldn't be a thing of our past. We have the ability to help each other. It's time to show up, take care of the ones around us who feel lost, without hope, alone in this world. We are the world to each other. We need to let them know we hear them.
Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com