Deborah Coddington: It's the sorrow that dare not speak its name

Last week I bumped into a friend I haven't seen for a long, long time. We first met, ah, about 30 years ago. It was at an environment conference in Christchurch, in my role as editor of the Third New Zealand Whole Earth Catalogue.

Yes, I was into organic veges, composting toilets, green tomato chutney and baking bread in flower pots when the Green Party wasn't even predicted in the jasmine tea leaves. Miles (not his real name) was a newly qualified lawyer working for some quango. He had hair back then. I had a waist.

We lost touch over the years, seeing each other in the street, maybe passing at airports. Then when we last caught up - about 15 years ago - he was bouncy, smiling, reasonably rich and successful. A partner, I think, in a major law firm. Glamorous wife. Two children; lovely girls.

Then a few weeks ago I heard that one of Miles' daughters had taken her own life. In another land. Out of the blue. Miles had flown out to deal with coroners, funeral arrangements, collecting possessions. I got his address and wrote a completely inadequate letter. Mumbled platitudes; "feel your loss, thoughts with you, always terrible shock". How easy it is to write when joy is being conveyed: congratulations on your new baby is a letter everyone eagerly sends. Death blocks the Muse.

But write we do, partly in genuine sympathy, and also to reassure ourselves we've done our bit.

So I'm in the Koru lounge awaiting a boarding call and Miles just sort of materialises beside me. No greeting - I feel his sadness before I recognise him. We wrap our arms around each other and hold on tight.

It is surely one of the cruellest things for a parent to bury a child. They should be attending our wakes, crying and laughing at our memories. Preventable death of offspring is bad enough, but to raise a son or daughter to adulthood - hold their hands crossing the road, thump their backs when they choke on barley sugars, smack their little fingers away from electric sockets, panic when they don't come home at midnight curfew - only to have them commit suicide is a pain eternally compounded by questions they can never answer for us.

And despite the number of suicides in New Zealand coming down, we still have one of the highest rates among developed countries. Well, that's judging by the 2002 figures - released just last month, the lateness of which is a scandal in itself. How can we address the why, and work out the how, if two whole years are a black hole of not knowing what? In 1998, apparently, we hit the zenith (or nadir, depending on your view) of suicides with 577. In 2002 the number dropped to 460, but that's still two deaths a week for under 25-year-olds. Is this not God's Own Country? Why, when there's so much to live for, do so many of our children choose to die?

Officials argue that the media glorify youth suicide, "normalise" it, inciting copycat deaths. As a result, a strict code surrounds the way journalists can report a suicide. There may be something in that, but doesn't it risk the dangerous situation of ignoring the problem altogether? The sorrow that dare not speak its name.

Auckland University psychologist John Read's recently released survey of 384 students showed that young people did not want to suppress talk about suicide and most disagreed that "hearing a lot about suicide [newspapers, TV, etc]" was a cause. Read made a very salient point, one ignored by those who promote mental health as something that yes, even famous New Zealanders suffer from - fashion designers, movie stars, budding journos.

He suggested if stress and depression weren't classified as mental illness then young people might be more willing to seek help without being labelled "nutters". He said everyone has failures, "you need to have people that will support you and tell you you are an okay person." Quite.

Meanwhile, parents like Miles try to get out of bed each morning and carry on. Every day they ask, Why? The eternal Why? The rest of us with kids live in terror that ours will be next. We are not immune. There is no manual for prevention. No parent is perfect.

I shared a taxi into town with Miles so we could talk some more. He alighted at his apartment, tailored suit hanging off slumped shoulders, eyes so sad I winced when ours met. "How do you cope?" I asked. "Where's the roadmap? They wrote one for the Middle East, so what about you?"

But parents who have buried a child lose a piece of their heart for ever. 

- HERALD ON SUNDAY