Adventures in Paradise Volume 2 #32

Kia ora! Our excellent adventure continues with thoughts centered on what was almost lost. Last Saturday an eleven-year old child, after a disagreement with family members, tried to take her own life.  As you might imagine, this has been a distressing and distracting week for many, as those close to the family try to sort out and absorb the events leading up to this tragedy. Even though a life was not lost, it is tragic just the same, to know that suicide seemed a viable option to this young girl.

In a country where it is unlawful to leave children under the age of twelve alone at home, it is mind-boggling to imagine that a child, who is not even old enough to be left, would choose to make a decision that would absent her from her family forever. So, as her family, the church and her community, work together to address the root cause of her choice, I am struck by the enormous loss that that one choice would have represented.

When I was teaching Adult Roles at Bountiful High School, I remember having a discussion about suicide with my students. The focus of that discussion was a short statement that I had written on the board. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” From the vantage point of adulthood, we learn that tomorrows offer solutions. We have learned that hope is a precious commodity and resiliency is a gift. We have learned just how far-reaching many decisions are and that none of us lives or acts in a vacuum. What we all do affects others in more ways than we can ever imagine.

The hurt that this young girl was intending to inflict on her family simply because she was upset would never go away. The lesson that she was trying to teach them would not be learned and in the place of parents regretting certain treatments as imagined by their daughter, grief would be their permanent instructor. 

This week, I have found that my thoughts have often been focused not so much on what the family would have lost had the attempt been successful, but rather on what precious moments that eleven-year old would have erased from her possibilities. I realize that since a child does not and cannot perceive the world in adult terms, there would be no way of her contemplating all that would be lost. Her focus was a very childlike aim to make her family feel sorry. How terribly and tragically short- sighted that sort of thinking is. How permanent that shortsightedness becomes.

Hamlet pondered whether to be or not and in the end, decided to be. Perhaps he considered all that would be missed, all that he would miss and hopefully, all who would miss him.

It’s windy in Gisborne today and if I were considering not being, I would hope that before making a decision I would remember how it feels to have the wind blow through my hair.  I would hope that I might consider how much I love a colorful fall afternoon and the nippiness in the air. I would hope that I might remember how lovely it is to bite into a crisp apple and how quiet an evening snowfall can be. I would not have missed being a mother for all of the world or to have been a part of my family. I would hope that I would not choose to prematurely sever relationships with people that I love. I would always choose to be, no matter what.

So, as I think about the young girl that everyone is praying for at this moment, I would pray that she chooses to stay on this planet thus enabling her to experience some of what my life has included. I also pray for her that she will stay with us so that she can find what joy there is in just being. I pray that she and her family find the peace that they so desperately need and in the finding, grow closer together. I am praying that she enjoys the fruits of living an ordinary life. I am praying that she will recognize the gift of life for the extraordinary blessing that it is. I am praying that she chooses to be.

As always, we are happy and trying to work hard. We have had reason this week, to reexamine and appreciate more fully the lives that we live and the people who and experiences that fill our days. We are grateful not to have lost them.

Love, Ward and Susan     Elder and Sister Belliston, serving in Gisborne, New