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When a popular young Arnhem Land teacher and environmentalist took her life last month, it hit hard in a community already reeling from an uptick in Aboriginal youth suicide. However, says her father, that story is not her story. (WARNING: Story contains images of a deceased Indigenous person.)
MICHAEL Eather is a heartbroken white man, determined that his daughter's suicide not be linked to Aboriginal despair and dysfunction.
Less than a month ago Alice Eather, a popular and driven young woman, slipped off from a gathering of family and friends to the solitude of her high-set home in the NT community of Maningrida and ended her life.
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As far as anyone knew, the dedicated local school teacher from a prominent Arnhem Land family had shaken off her "black dog" years earlier and was finally enjoying the peace and fulfillment she sought.
A passionate environmental defender, Alice's campaign to force US oil company Paltar Petroleum to withdraw its application to frack for gas in her NT home garnered international attention, helped by the documentary made about her life along with siblings Noni and Grace, Stingray Sisters.
Along with her sisters, born to traditional landowner Helen Williams and Mr Eather, a Brisbane-based art dealer, Alice had by all accounts come to terms with a life lived in two very different worlds.
She was many things to many people, constantly flitting between groups of friends in the city — where she attended school and moved effortlessly in her father's artistic circles — and colleagues, community and family members on country, where she had chosen to pursue her career as a much-loved teacher at Maningrida School.
The goddess of polarities
After her death, the Maningrida community lined the streets to pay their respects to Alice as she was taken by charter to Darwin and on to Brisbane, to be laid to rest after a service attended by hundreds.
Speaking a week on from the funeral at his art gallery in inner Brisbane, Michael said the family had been inundated with messages of support.
"So many people have reached out, it's a sea of hands," said Michael.
"All our family and friends, from here and there and up and down and left and right, green and blue, black and white — the goddess of polarities has brought everyone in."
In the days since his daughter's death, Michael stood by grief-stricken yet patient as people "tried to put words" around her suicide.
Now it was the time to "discuss the elephant in the room", he said, and in speaking about her mental illness reclaim his daughter's identity as a strong-willed soul filled with light and laughter who succumbed to a disease that does not discriminate between race, gender or socio-economic circumstance.
"I didn't want this issue to be owned by an Aboriginal dysfunction, and that's why (in a eulogy at Alice's funeral) I said 'coming from two proud families'," he said.
"We hear about the failure and dysfunction in Aboriginal communities, all the youth suicide, growing up with domestic violence and sexual violence, and then that child took their own life, and I'm thinking f***, my child is not part of that story.
"Somehow it may be part of those statistics, but I want to reach in there and grab that back out of that horrible f***ing box and say this is not about that. This is about mental health. I don't have answers, but it's not part of some dysfunction, or because black and white can't resolve itself.
"If people don't know, they start thinking what could have happened — she had everything going for her, why did she take her life, was it a drug thing? We're living in the age where people just fricken make it up."
Girls from two worlds
In fact, said sister Noni Eather, each of the girls had learnt to negotiate their split upbringing, building strong relationships with both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, moving easily among their peers in the white world and upholding their obligations and responsibilities in the black.
"There were moments that would have been hard for a lot of other people, easy for them to give up because of that sense of no hope, but we are very grateful for our support network — both communities and families had to learn to understand each other, in order for us to grow," she said.
"[Alice] was very good at bringing people together. She didn't like segregation and the idea of formulating an opinion that could create a debate that became too heated. It was actually getting people to question where we all stand. Like she said — 'When we start blaming each other, we make no room for changing each other'.
"People in Maningrida, they looked up to Alice ... they knew they could put their trust in her. Working so hard she would miss out on a lot of things — just the same as us growing up in Brisbane, there were those sacrifices she'd have to make."
She said while her sister was a workaholic whose passions and sheer popularity often left her exhausted, she knew how to withdraw and used outlets such as music and gardening to relax.
"She was an opportunist — any time there was light on her, she would work her magic," she said.
"But there were times when she was like, nup I'm tired of it... I don't want to do this right now, I need space to just chill on my own. Once you get into that world of everyone wanting to something to do with you… She didn't realise how big a celebrity she was.
"It was hard work, and she was a perfectionist when it came to organising things — even when a relief teacher came in for her classroom, she'd clean it up for them, make sure he had notes for them, made sure they understood each child in the class. She was wanting to make sure her space was cared for. As an Aboriginal young teacher… she was always aware of (her obligations and responsibilities).
"But she has and has always had such a great support group around her, with her family and friends, and she has always spoken about that."
Noni said even as the Protect Arnhem Land campaign her sister spearheaded achieved its aim, with Paltar withdrawing its fracking application in 2016, the trio knew the fight wasn't over.
"We weren't expecting it, so it was a really good surprise. Alice felt that she could just breathe for a little bit, because it was one of those big hurdles. But ... we kept on saying to our community mob, this isn't going to end. There are people that are going to be coming into our community, and you're going to be offered a lot of money, but you're going to have to keep that fight up about what you want for your future generation.
"We knew that wasn't the end."
We thought, she's flying high
Michael said while a degree of celebrity helped his daughters, and particularly Alice, achieve their aims, it came at a cost — the return of anxiety and depression that had plagued Alice as a younger woman, to the point that she was hospitalised for treatment.
However, both he and Noni felt that she had conquered her illness, or at least learnt to live with it, and felt blindsided by her seemingly impulsive act that night.
"Ten years ago, when she first got diagnosed with depression, we put her into the New Farm Clinic (a specialist mental health facility), she did sort her way through that and we honestly thought it was over," he said.
"She spoke about it as something that was past and she was so glad it was behind her. That's why we took our eyes off the ball and relaxed a bit and thought, she's flying high."
Said Noni:
"With her it got overwhelming at times — she was 28, she'd accomplished so much. But when it came to depression, I know there were lots of people who would come to her to talk about their dark moments and she would counsel them. Being an empathetic person and you feel everything, and it's hard — you take everyone's energy on board and you don't know what to do with it."
Noni said her sister would have "only had a small space of time" in which to take her life, and that despite the two spending almost all their spare time together, "I didn't see it coming. There was nothing that was instigating it, nothing that was pushing her to go that way — it just happened.
"I keep reflecting on it and thinking maybe I should have. She knows my routine and she had a space where it all just came in on her, and she thought, you know what — there's no halfway, I'm going to do it. She knew that if we were available we'd try to stop her.
"Everyone's asking the same question and there's no right answer — death, on our community we deal with it — it's become a normalised thing."
Stories I will tell my daughter
Djappa. What can i say that would ever do justice to our friendship. Because that's what you have been to me since my birth: My best friend.I always looked up to you.
And you always led by example.
You were the most respectful and compassionate person. You were so loving that you didn't even need to think about forgiving people because you never held a grudge.
As a little sister — all my life I watched you in admiration, when you would interact with other people, when you would always put children and elders first, when you would help strangers you never knew, or send me a song to play to help me get through the labour of my child — you were so naturally generous that I would feel shame and then be immediately humbled by your grace.
My favourite memories of you are spending time on our island Kabalko, you would hop off the boat, dip your feet in the water and go straight to your favourite fishing spot off the rocks, and when everyone was tired after an hour of fishing and the sun was too hot, you would still be there, eight hours later, patient, focussed, and eventually you would return, that radiant brown skin of yours four shades darker :), smiling from ear to ear, because you had just caught everybody dinner.
We partied together, we cracked up laughing together, we travelled together, we did everything together, and you always had me under your wing.
I remember when I was pregnant, and Will and I were living with you in Maningrida, and you had had a few drinks, you'd come into my bed and sing songs to my belly and tickle me and encourage and help me on my journey of becoming a mother.
And these are the stories I will tell my daughter about her inspiring, poetic and deeply loving aunty.
It has always been and still is a privilege to know that I am related to someone SO special.
Just like the song we used to sing to each other: You are my compass and my sea.
— Grace Eather
Alice's aunt, Rebecca Eather, a counsellor, pointed to high levels of anxiety among high achievers as a possible stressor.
"Anxiety and depression — that's what you see in a lot of the high achievers. She was driven — extraordinarily driven, and a perfectionist, and I think there was a lot of anxiety behind that. High-functioning. That's why it is such an integral part of this story."
Why did she want to go?
Michael said any signs his daughter was struggling were obscured by her natural charisma and apparent personal success.
"I don't want people to think Alice was depressed, lonely and living in uncertain circumstances, worrying about her life. It was the bloody opposite. She was worried about everyone else," he said.
"When I visited, the principal was on the plane and said, 'Mate, your daughter. I'm the principal but I'm just warming up the seat for her.'
"When the Stingray Sisters came out, it was the fracking that gave it a global story. It was a nice story, a funky story about a family...
"We need to mention that she was in a good place — pray tell, why did she want to go to another place?
"As a father when you see your daughter in that situation, with all her achievements, that she had that darkness she moved into and took her own life, a lot of people are trying to work out how they can build words around that — she touched so many people, she led so many little battles, in the classroom and elsewhere — she was a leader, and why did she take it into a dark world.
"The only thing we can really think is that she is in a sort of pain that a mental illness brings on, that we'll never understand, but it's important that we talk about it, because she's not alone. It takes something like that to wake you up and realise this sort of illness picks people out of all cultures, all societies and all demographics.
"This is not an Aboriginal problem.
"Noni knows too well that there is so much beauty in Aboriginal communities, but dysfunction as well. But youth suicide is an option that has taken too many lives, and that can be for some really horrible and hard-hitting reasons to do with dysfunction.
"Alice's story is not like that. It is not about that at all. It is really important to me that this story of Alice taking her life, maybe it's another statistic but I don't want it to be — I don't want it to be owned as an Aboriginal problem. She didn't take her life because she was Aboriginal, or she was half Aboriginal …. It was something bigger than that. I don't know anything about it. The thing just knocked at our door a couple of weeks ago and we're still working out who entered the room."
Michael said his daughter's final act caught everyone off-guard, but that amid the pain some good could come of it.
"God knows what was in Alice's mind, because she didn't let on — as much as she let on her balancing act, I guess for me down here I thought the worst was behind her. I was certainly worried about other things in our collective family lives, not so much about that," he said.
"I think you'd have to say she was in a lot of pain balancing the chemicals in her mind that brought on sadness and darkness amidst all that empathy and light she gave to people.
"I'll never know, we'll never know, but we think good thoughts. We're tired and emotionally exhausted — we only buried her a week ago. But there's still optimism — that's what I'm getting. There's a vacuum that I hope people step up to."
We need a voice out there
Noni hopes her sister's passing sheds light on an oft-discussed but little understood topic, in both worlds she, Alice and Grace inhabit.
She said the pair had discussed how they might mount their next Stingray Sisters campaign — this time to address the soaring incidence of mental illness in Indigenous communities.
"I constantly think about how much she's achieved, at 28. She's still a little girl to me. In Maningrida, we need that voice out there that talks about suicide and depression. Not only in Maningrida, in Indigenous communities — there've been way too many lately," she said.
Photo:
Mourners listen to tributes at Alice Eather's funeral in Brisbane. (Supplied: Rebecca Eather)
"Within Indigenous mob, they have terms for depression and anxiety, and that darkness that follows you around. Some people call it the black dog. It's something that follows you around, and eventually attacks you.
"The services we've been requesting on community and the way we'd like them needs to happen. Every time there's a suicide, it's so hard to just deal with it amongst all that other stuff. The door's going to have to be opened wider as to how we address this — across Australia.
"Alice and I have been talking about it for a couple of months — about how are we going to get our community to tackle this. We agreed we'd sit down one night and start nutting out a good poem — because poetry is a language we can interpret… into the 13 different language groups in Maningrida. It was one solution.
"It is something that needs to be spoken about.
"Alice's story is different, just like she teaches those students — they all have their stories. Alice, as much as we sit there and be in denial, she was in pain — she had that black dog following her around. She conquered a lot of things, and there were tougher moments that she got through.
"It's like she'd actually found her quiet spot and then she was like, bye everyone."
Credits
Reporting: Freya Petersen
Videos: David Douglas Stuart
Topics: critique-and-theory, mental-health, mining-environmental-issues, suicide, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, brisbane-4000, maningrida-0822
First posted