Station 13

The artist's comment

A young girl lies on a bed. On the floor can be seen a note she has written: “I did not want to kill myself, but the life I was leading…”

Another evidence of suicide is the empty bottle of pills on the night-table. But parallel to this tragic act is evidence of her desire not to die; the telephone off the hook suggests her cry for help. The setting is that of the comfortable middle-class: silk sheets, expensive furniture, carpets, stuffed animals. Alongside the cuddly toys which are symbols of an unfinished childhood, the alcohol indicates her desire for adulthood, a conflict that is very much a part of growing up.

On the wall there is a mirror in which appears the image of a young girl who symbolizes the call to life.

The doorbell rang as the three of us were finishing the dinner that Brothers Joseph and Gabriel had cooked for my visit. We had been talking about their option to live here at La Sauvegarde (“Lifeline”) in an immense public housing project in Lyon. The visitor, a young man in his twenties, had obviously come by often before. The brothers teased him as he took his place at the table. Within a few minutes he began asking them if they wanted his music tapes and the cash he had at home because he was planning to kill himself.

Isabel Cristina had tried to commit suicide twice when I met her at Hogar Hermano Policarpo at the age of eleven. She had run away several times from her house in Medellín because her father had forced her to sell drugs with an addict and with her 15-year old brother, who was later killed.

“I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to kill the life I was leading,” explained a Quebec youth after her failed suicide attempt. In Quebec province, suicides between the ages of 15 and 24 have been mounting at an alarming rate, now an average of 344 per year, nearly one per day!

Many adolescents who attempt suicide give as a principal cause the silence or coldness of their father.

Others say they have no sense of belonging among peers. A third reason is pressure to perform in school.

One Montreal religious education teacher, Richard Labelle, reports: “I broke up a suicide pact. It was an excellent student, really a genius, who was making the final preparations. Those kids were trying to earn love by their academic performance, but everybody around them began taking their excellent results for granted. So, they were left in an emotional void. The futility led them to want to end it all.” (L’Oratoire, May 1996)

We give voice to the prayer of young people attempting suicide

Isaiah 38

Once I said, “In the noontime of life I must depart! To the gates of the netherworld I shall be consigned for the rest of my years.” I said, “I shall see the Lord no more in the land of the living. No longer shall I behold my friends among those who dwell in the world.” My dwelling, like a shepherd’s tent is struck down and borne away from me; I have folded up my life, like a weaver who severs the last thread. . . . Like a swallow I utter shrill cries; I moan like a dove.