Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Fort McPherson (Sep 24/01) - Twenty-eight years, one month, and three days since Hazel Nerysoo lost her older brother to suicide, she will be receiving a national award for her work in suicide prevention.

Hazel Nerysoo, winner of this year's service award from the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo

On Oct. 26, Nerysoo will stand on a stage in St. John's, Nfld. Someone from the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention will place a plaque her hand. Not far from her mind that moment will be the memory of her brother.

She was 16 when he died. Now she is 43, and she still wonders what her brother would be like if he were alive today. She still doesn't know why he did it. He was just 18.

In the years since her brother's death, Nerysoo has helped dozens of people like him, talking them through their most desperate hours. A probation officer by day, Nerysoo is part of an informal crisis team called in by the RCMP or the health centre when they have a suicidal person on their hands. The number of cases she deals with varies last week she had three. But, she says, she might not get called again for a month, if things are quiet.

When they're not working their day jobs, or dealing with crisis cases, she and the five other trained volunteers on the team try to reach anyone who might be thinking about suicide. They've done talks on the community radio station, made presentations at meetings, at school gatherings, in classrooms. They've held sharing circles and a couple candlelight vigils over the years. They want people to know what to look for, what the signs are, what to do if they or a friend starts thinking about suicide.

"One of the things I always stress is don't ignore it," Nerysoo says. "Say if someone is saying 'I think my family would be better off without me,' investigate it, find out what they mean. I just feel that everybody's life is valuable. I know the pain when someone loses someone."

Her work in suicide prevention began in 1989 when she became a school councillor. Around the same time, she lost a brother-in-law and a cousin, both to suicide, not even a month apart from each other. As with her brother's suicide, she says she never really dealt with the loss directly. "I always thought I had to be strong."

It wasn't until she did a three-week suicide prevention seminar through the Hay River Dene Cultural Institute in 1995 that she felt she really grieved the loss of her brother and those others she loved. "I really feel this three-week program is what really helped me. It helps you deal with your own issues so you can go and help someone else."

After that course, part of a territorial government push for community initiatives in suicide prevention, Nerysoo began focusing more on her work in crisis intervention. Her training has helped to heal the wound of her brother's death, but she says, she doesn't think a person ever fully recovers from the suicide of a loved one.

"It's a lifelong process. I don't like to use that word -- healing. Once you've dealt with it there's times that sadness still comes. It's always there."

Suicide prevention is now something of a family affair. Nerysoo has seven children the eldest is 25, the youngest is four. One of her daughters sometimes helps intervene with youth in crisis and two of her sisters are in the same field.

Nerysoo credits her husband, James, for supporting her through the years. "I wouldn't be where I am in my life (without him). A lot of the time, it was him who juggled home and work when I'm on training somewhere or when I'm called out in the night."