Two Deaths, One Funeral

Brokenness is a kind of JVI buzzword that my community tends to often joke about. I drop a ceramic mug on the floor- brokenness. Marcos sprains his ankle, falling in a treacherous pothole on the notorious Chuuk road- brokenness. Though we like to take this concept lightly here, my time in Chuuk has not been without real, deep brokenness. Over the past two weeks I have learned of the deaths of two people in my community at St. Cecilia. One, a student of mine named Jerome. The other, the wife of my co-teacher Jerry, named Cecilia.

Jerome was a 6th grade boy, who, as I learned in school the following day, committed suicide. One of the nuns informed me of the news, and I have rarely ever felt more shocked. Jerome was about 12 or 13 years old. He lived a few minutes walk away from my apartment. He has been left back from the 7th grade at the beginning of this school year and struggled greatly in my class. Jerome was, for the most part, illiterate.

The news of a suicide death at such a young age seems much more shocking to me than any of my Micronesian friends. In Chuuk, the rate of teenage suicide is one of the highest in the world. I don’t understand why. I can’t even begin to. Jerome’s death has been some of the darkest news I have ever received.

In addition to the confusion I feel with regard to the causes of Jerome’s death, I also feel troubled by the response. In Chuuk, the Catholic church here has created a rule that no suicide deaths will be recognized with a funeral. Catholic school students are not excused from school to visit the family. No announcement was made at the school assembly meeting to formally acknowledge Jerome. I have many, many concerns with Church policies in Chuuk, which I will not discuss further here. However, I feel that all life, at its end, should be recognized and honored.

The 7th and 6th grade students did discuss Jerome’s death, and recognized it in their own way. I also teach three of Jerome’s cousins who I have been attempting to reach out to. Chuuk State lacks any social service program and the schools are without counselors. The family structure is very strong but I still worry that my students do not have a healthy outlet to express their feelings on matters of death that are so much more eminent here than in America.

Less than one week following Jerome’s death, our acting-principal informed the school that Cecilia, the wife of an 8th grade teacher Jerry, had passed away. I never had the opportunity of meeting Cecilia, but faculty members have told me of her warm and light-hearted temperament. At the age of 40 she died of diabetes. Diabetes, especially type II, also leads to many deaths here usually related to the diet of canned meat and rice. Jerry and I teach the same students, the 8th graders, and he is always the one cracking jokes at our meetings.

Cecilia’s funeral, or what I would in my own culture call a wake, was this past Thursday at 1 pm. The school day was shortened and the 4th through 8th grade students all attended the funeral together. The nearly 200 students lined up in straight lines. We walked from St. Cecilia on the road for about 10 minutes until we arrived at the compound where the funeral took place. From the road you could hear women crying. Women were inside the meeting house where the body was laid out while the men remained outside. When we arrived, all of the students and teachers entered. I sat on the floor, cross-legged with the 8th grade students. The principal greeted the family, a student read from the Chuukese bible, and we sang. Following this we exited the meeting house where Jerry was waiting to shake all of our hands and thank us for coming. The viewing can go on for a few days until the funeral mass which will also be held in the meeting house. Burials here are on the family’s property.

The opportunity to participate in Cecilia’s funeral granted me a greater perspective on how Chuukese people deal with death. The reaction of the school and attendance of the funeral gave me hope. However, the juxtaposition of the response to these two deaths was stark. I wish that Jerome’s life could have been honored, his family could have been visited, and the students might have had some venue for bearing in mind the death of their classmate.