We
say that it takes village to raise a child. It also takes a village to
keep that child alive. And it takes a village to mourn and heal when
our child is taken from us.

Since the turn of the millennium,
Somerville has lost at least twenty of its young people to suicide,
murder, misadventure, or drug overdoses. Their passing has devastated
family and friends, leaving wounds that are slow to heal and scars that
fade only with the passing of years.

Recognizing that the more
we are connected with those who share our grief, the more effective the
healing seems to be, Save Our Somerville (SOS) will conduct a healing
vigil on Sunday May 31st, beginning at 6:30 PM in front of Somerville
High School. SOS wants to cast the net of community as widely as
possible, and anyone who has felt the pain of losing a loved one is
encouraged to participate.

When we see young lives ending at a
rate that is so disproportionate to our population, we must inevitably
ask, "Is this in some way systematic?"

SOS president Matthew
McLaughlin talks about the "Somerville slump." He sees a pattern of
young people who are about to leave high school or have recently left
and are facing the demands of adulthood. They realize that the life
that they had dreamed of will be much more difficult to achieve than
what they have been led to believe.

Matthew recalls that as a
child, options seemed limitless. But options have narrowed, and this is
not merely a matter of the changes in perception that come with aging.
He believes that demands on young people, including definitions of
"success," have increased significantly, while opportunities have
decreased.

Drugs become a means of managing despair. And one
gives little thought to reckless behavior if one is uncertain about
whether life is worth living.

Indeed, once embraced, drugs
undermine one's capacity to make life worth living. We grow when things
get hard and we have to develop new ways of thinking and acting to make
them better. If instead, we use a drug to numb the pain, we never learn
the skills required to change our circumstances, and we feel hopeless
when we try.

Drug-prevention educators often emphasize the
dangers of taking drugs. In fact, anyone who uses hard drugs is already
aware of those dangers. But they know that if they put their preferred
substance in their arm or up their nose, they will feel good for the
next few hours, and nothing else in their life offers that same promise
and certainty.

The incidence of drug use and suicide attempts
among Somerville's youth had been growing when, in late 2001, Matty
O'Brien's death from an overdose captured public attention. Some
informal leaders began coming together.

Stephanie Almeida, a
Somerville native who worked with Somerville Cares About Prevention
spent many long hours pouring over death records. Her labor of love
quantified a pattern that had gone unrecognized.

The official
response was less than effective. The mayor established a task force
and sent football coach John Hannah to…I don't know what. When
notices were posted at the high school to announce the task force's
first meeting, administrators insisted that the word "suicide" be
removed, because it might upset the students. Of course the students
were already upset, already knew well what the adults were discovering,
and needed reassurance that someone was doing something.

Tears
and rage are not hurt. They are the means by which we heal from the
hurt. When they are interrupted, healing becomes more difficult.

Local
community leader Alex Pirie participated in the task force. He observes
that those who were most affected were the last to be listened to. "As
with any community, it's difficult to face something that's seriously
wrong. You have to face the problem before you can deal with it.
Because we didn't, there were young people who died unnecessarily."

Many
friends and loved ones felt an impulse to create physical memorials for
those who died-photos, drawings, notes, flowers, artifacts, expressions
of grief. City officials and private property owners removed these
memorials. Instead of tidying things up, they would better serve us by
embracing them as an expression of community.

Intending to
create their own memorial, SOS encourages those who attend the vigil to
bring artifacts that remind them of their lost loves ones. They will
become part of a commemorative art project.

Those whom I know
who took their lives through intent or neglect did so because they felt
hopeless about making things better and they had become disconnected
from the network of relationships that holds us in this life. If we are
serious about creating a believable future for our young people, we
must change the objective conditions that produce despair. We must
reweave the fabric of community that hold us together, and we must
acquaint our youth with their own capacity to transform their lives.

SOS
is working to accomplish this. One of its many concerns is
gentrification. While Matthew McLaughlin hastens to say that
gentrification was not a reason why anyone took their life, he believes
that the increasing threat of being priced out of the community that
one has always been a part of contributes to the overall sense of
despair.

Yet SOS is not hostile to newcomers. The organization
is reaching out through the Immigrant Service Providers Group on Heath
to invite immigrants to participate in the healing vigil.