Rachel Frazin

Her story in her own words ...

I was born mid-twentieth century on Chicago's West side in the Jewish neighborhood where my paternal grandparents immigrated to avoid the genocide perpetrated by Russian army Cossacks during the pogroms. A childhood spent in the shadow of the Holocaust cemented my awareness of discrimination in its most rabid form, ensuring that I would seek a life of service.

I grew up free range, an outgoing tomboy who chased my joy playing pickup kickball and endless skating on park ice. I excelled in school from an intrinsic motivation to learn rather than competing to win. I noticed when children were bullied or their teachers shamed them for not knowing answers to questions in class. I understood that some kids couldn't "just do it" although I didn't know why.

After my parents divorced when I was 12, my mother and stepfather pulled up stakes and headed to Indiana. I was prohibited from visiting my father in Chicago. My father's fatal heart attack when I was 17 forced me to grapple with sudden loss, which would serve me well when my daughter died suddenly 40 years later.

I studied Anthropology because of my fascination with other cultures. Coming of age in an era of dynamic social change fueled my idealism. I marched against the Vietnam War and picketed grocery stores that sold iceberg lettuce in support of Caesar Chavez's unionization of migrant farm workers. I rode feminism's Second Wave, which inspired my confidence that I could be and do anything I wanted. Hitch-hiking solo throughout Europe enabled me to meet young people whose continental perspective grew my own. Behind the Iron Curtain I witnessed the underbelly of Communism, a dose of reality that impacted my socialist values. At Auschwitz I stood alone before the crematorium's oven, which viscerally deepened my resolve to contribute to a just world.

I met and eventually married Mike Finley, a talented writer who was supportive of my dreams. After I completed a Baccalaureate in Nursing at the University of Minnesota, I landed my first job working as a public health nurse for the Colorado Migrant Health Program. Despite my meager Spanish the migrant families who packed the cement-block homes were grateful for the care I provided. I fell in love with the Latinx culture's warmth, humility, and commitment to family. Soon after I attended a Spanish immersion program in the Guatemalan highlands which enabled me to communicate with my Latinx patients in the years to come.

Supported by a scholarship I completed a Master's Degree at the Yale University School of Nursing to become a family nurse practitioner. In 1985 Mike and I settled down in St Paul, Minnesota where we raised our daughter, Daniele, and son, Jonathan. Mike's flexible schedule enabled us to share the child-rearing and household chores. I practiced urban primary care medicine, serving a lower income, diverse population of patients.

Once the children grew up, the wild Alaskan Bush lured my wanderlust. Summer of 2008 I began working intermittently to provide medical care to Native Alaskans living in the Arctic Circle. Summer 2009, Daniele's death at 24 from a poly substance overdose incurred an existential crisis. I asked myself how a child who had been raised in a stable loving family and benefited from excellent public schools and middle-class enrichments could die by her own hand. My need for answers initiated a decade-long quest for understanding that took me deep into the weeds of Daniele's life and around the world in search of the wisdom of other cultures. With the highest suicide rate in the U.S., the Arctic gifted me with a community of people who had survived bone-deep losses.

Knowing that what we do for others helps us heal, I created a sustainable health care program in 2014 in the remote Tsum Valley of Nepal. In collaboration with local guides, I led teams of Nepali and Western clinicians who trek days to reach remote Middle Himalayan villages with medicines and supplies purchased from funds I raise.

In 2017 Mike learned that he had advanced metastatic prostate cancer. After three quality years in remission, his cancer became resistant to treatment. In March 2020, he entered hospice amid the challenges of the Covid pandemic. With the support of friends, Jon and I were able to fulfill the promise I'd made to Mike that he would die at home. On August 10, 2020, he passed away surrounded by Jon, me, and his faithful standard poodle, Lucy.

Mike had asked me why he was dying younger than many of his family members and friends. Although genetics count, I told him that witnessing his beloved Daniele suffer throughout her life followed by her death from suicide was more than he could bear. Although American medicine has not undertaken the burden of proof, scientific evidence exists to support the body-mind unity. Despite Mike's effort to heal through his poetry and storytelling, he couldn't shake the feeling that he should have done something to prevent her death. More egregiously, he missed Daniele terribly.

Mike and I are not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are silently grieving the loss of loved ones to deaths of despair — suicide, alcohol toxicity, and drug overdose — which have escalated during the pandemic. The collateral damage to the health and well-being of surviving family members and friends is incalculable.

Through my writing and presentations, I hope to pay forward what I've learned from Daniele's life and the lives of my patients so that others can understand the role that societal harm plays in this 21st century plague of self-destruction. With awareness each of us can contribute to a just society where everyone can thrive.