Michael Meade travels throughout the country to work with people struggling with death and violence. But recently, the author and mythologist said, he’s seen this struggle more than ever in his own community.
After a string of tragic deaths and suicides on Vashon, Meade and a small group of islanders are organizing an event they hope will be a catalyst for healing and suicide prevention.
Officials at the Vashon School District and Vashon Youth & Family Services say they also hope the weekend event, titled Crush the Fog, will be the first in a series of new offerings addressing grief, mental health and suicide on Vashon.
“I think the community needs to be talking to itself and each other about tragedy and loss and healing, and about prevention,” Meade said.
By piecing together news reports, funeral home records and information from families, Meade has counted 15 of what he calls tragic deaths of Vashon residents over roughly two years, from October of 2012 through last month. In that time, he says, there have been at least 10 suicides, two fatal car accidents, two drownings and one fatal drug overdose. Two of those who died were in high school, and eight were people between ages 20 and 27.
While Meade, who has lived on Vashon 40 years, doesn’t call the deaths a trend, he does say the number is unnerving. Some islanders have now been affected by multiple deaths, he noted; fresh tragedies can stir memories of older ones, and the schools in particular have been impacted.
Most recently, a mother of two school-age children died by suicide in August, and a 2010 graduate of Vashon High School died in a bus accident on Vashon a couple weeks ago.
“I think we’re all feeling really vulnerable and traumatized by what we’ve experienced over the past couple years,” said school district Superintendent Michael Soltman.
Meade recently met with school faculty to explain his hopes for Crush the Fog, set for this Saturday at the Open Space for Arts & Community.
There, he said, people of all ages will first have the opportunity to participate in what organizers are calling a community memorial. Meade, who speaks of how ancient funeral rituals can promote healing, will lead participants through ceremonies involving singing, discussion and lighting candles. The ceremonies, he said, are meant to both recognize the lives lost and to help people grieve together. Through his nonprofit organization, the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, Meade has led gang members, war veterans and poverty stricken communities through the same processes.
“We’ll take the opportunity to talk to each other, to say what’s hard to say if you pass someone in the street or in the ferry line,” Meade said. “I’m hoping people come away a little more whole, a little like we are all in this together.”
The second half of the evening will be less somber, given over to a concert, dancing and snacks, something organizers hope will be a celebration of life.
Pete Welch, who books local venues through Vashon Events, has lined up some local musicians, including Sarah Christine and Jacob Bain, as well as several youth bands to play. Welch says he, too, has been moved by recent deaths and has felt a need to do something for the island. He convinced several local venues to hold out on offering concerts or other entertainment during Crush the Fog, making it more likely the event can draw a crowd.
“I care about kids, and I care what they’re going through,” Welch said.
High School junior Quinn McTighe is part of one band playing at Crush the Fog and has been one of a handful of local teens to offer Crush the Fog organizers feedback over six months of planning for the event. He noted that when high schooler Palmer Burke died by suicide in 2012, it was the first time he experienced the loss of someone his own age.
“One of the reasons I joined is I feel like a lot of people are feeling grief, but a lot of people are also feeling a lot of anger,” he said. “I feel like a we need to have a place people can get that out instead of holding it in.”
Lori Means, a parent educator at Vashon Youth & Family Services (VYFS), which is helping spread word of the event, said that while Crush the Fog incorporates activities that will be foreign to many, coming together to grieve as a group is a sound approach from a therapeutic standpoint.
“What we know helps individuals grieve is to open the wound and let the wound bleed,” she said. “That is best done by feeling people around you.”
“What we ultimately want from a public health perspective is to normalize emotional pain,” she added, “to make it clear that everyone feels emotional pain at times and there’s a formula for what we do with that.”
Soltman, at the school district, also said he was glad to see the event this weekend, but hopes it is followed up at the school district with additional programs. He is currently working to hire a mental health professional who will work with the district to create a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention and grief, possibly seeking grant money to fund it. While he said the district is early in the process, eventual plans could include workshops for parents and students, new curriculum in the classrooms, new strategies for one-on-one intervention and further partnership with VYFS or the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, which worked with the high school after Burke’s death. Soltman hopes to have a plan in place by the end of October.
“We want to take a leadership role in the community,” he said. “The bottom line is that none of us have any more stomach left for presiding over tragedy. We’re all feeling like we’d much rather invest our effort in doing a lot more on the preventative side.”
While no local agency keeps statistics on tragic deaths, numbers from Public Health — Seattle & King County show that there has been a recent uptick in suicides on Vashon. Between 1990 and 2012, there were between zero and three suicides per year on Vashon. However, last year, there were six suicides on the island. Three of those suicides were people between ages 15 and 24.
County officials have been quick to note that one year does not signify a trend, and it’s difficult to draw conclusions from Vashon’s statistics because of the small population.
Still, Annie Kirk, a violence and injury prevention specialist at the public health department, recently said she was happy to hear of any community that is “coming together to bring some awareness and figure out ways to have more of a support network.”
Last year King County took a look at the issue of youth suicide after 11 children under age 18 died by suicide in 2012, nearly three times the annual average. The county convened its Child Death Review Committee, a group of experts representing multiple agencies, to examine six of the 2012 suicides as well as suicide data from previous years. Kirk said most of the committee’s recommendations that weren’t related to specific cases involved suicide prevention work in schools.
State lawmakers recently asked schools to play a larger role in suicide prevention as well, passing a bill last year that requires all school district to have plans in place for recognizing and responding to emotional and behavioral distress, including suicidal thinking and behavior. It also requires some staff to complete additional suicide prevention training as a requirement of their certification.
Kirk says she regularly recommends that schools work with the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, a Washington nonprofit that has a model plan for schools and offers a suicide prevention training program that anyone can take.
“It’s really useful, and it’s a really important skill for people to have, much like CPR training,” he said.
Soltman noted that the school district has sound plans in place around crisis response and student intervention and already meets most the requirements of the new law, but he would like to do even more.
Whatever approach the district takes next, he hopes to get started soon, he said, and ultimately plans could take years to fully implement.
“I see it as a series of events that could go over a two-year period,” he said. “Some of it I hope gets embedded in our culture.”
Meade and Welch also expressed interest in starting some long-term programs on the island, perhaps even an arts-related mentorship program for youth, but said they’d first like to hear what islanders have to say at Crush the Fog.
“It releases creative energy,” Meade said. “We imagine we’ll hear a variety of ideas about what has to happen next.”
Crush the Fog will be at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Open Space for Arts & Community. For more information, see the center of this issue.
Helpful numbers
24-hour Crisis Line at 461-3222; Crisis Clinic Teen Link at 461-4922; Vashon Youth & Family Services at 463-5511 and Suicide Prevention at 1-800-273-8255.
