Remembering a friend with plea for more support

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2021 (1621 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t remember exactly when I met Alyssa Stevenson.

It was at École River Heights School in the 1990s. She was in Grade 9, a grade higher than me. She was enrolled in French Immersion, I think, but I can’t be sure. I just remember her being in our friend group one day. She seemed to know everyone, and she seemed to like and be liked by everyone. She was close with my friend Stephanie, and I was her friend by association. I always felt like Alyssa had my back.

She was fiery and fiercely loyal to her friends. She greeted people with hugs every time she saw them. It was Alyssa’s signature. I wasn’t good friends with her. We never had sleepovers or hung out after school, except at dances, where our little friend group would dance in a circle to songs such as Free Your Mind, Informer and Shoop.

It’s fuzzy to look back so long ago, but there are a handful of memories that are so clear. Most of them are times that didn’t seem particularly special or memorable in that moment but are burned into my mind.

I remember many noon hours where a giant group of us would walk to Alyssa’s house for lunch. It would always be a random gaggle of kids because everyone was welcome. If you didn’t have a lunch, Alyssa would make sure to feed you, but she never ate. I vividly remember people making grilled cheese sandwiches. There was usually someone making them in her kitchen. When they were done, Alyssa delighted in running cold water over the scalding pan to create a puff of steam and that “chssssssssssssssssssss” sound.

You could make yourself at home and help yourself to anything you wanted when you went to Alyssa’s house for lunch, but pouring water over the scalding frying pan to make that chssssssssss sound was her thing. It became a ritual. I still fondly think of her when I warp my hot pans under cold water now. It’s funny the things that etch other people in your mind and heart.

I didn’t stay close to Alyssa. We lost touch. I struggled in school and shuffled around until I eventually dropped out, and I’m not sure where her life led her in those early years. I knew she was struggling with an eating disorder. She had been for as long as I’d known her, but I didn’t comprehend her battle. In the early days, when we were friends, I didn’t understand the seriousness of it.

Alyssa died in 2002. She was 24 years old.

Her mother, Elaine Stevenson, continues to advocate in her name as co-founder of the Alyssa Stevenson Eating Disorder Memorial Trust. I recently saw a news clip of Alyssa’s mom making an impassioned and tearful plea to Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon, calling for the province to ramp up support for the eating disorder prevention and recovery program at the Women’s Health Clinic. Wait times for people in need of this program is two years, and there are more than 160 people waiting for admission and for treatment.

“Minister Gordon, I am begging and pleading for you to do something to help these families and to help the people that are suffering,” she said. “They have a right to treatment.”

It broke my heart — for my friend, for her mom, and for all the people suffering with eating disorders and their families, who need help and support. I don’t know a lot about this subject, and I want to tread carefully and respectfully when speaking about it. However, I know that two years is far too long for anyone to wait for life-saving treatment. I echo and support Elaine Stevenson’s plea for more funding. People’s lives depend on it, and they deserve treatment.

I don’t know the sorrow and the pain Alyssa’s family has endured during her illness and in the long-standing battle to advocate for others after her death. But I did know Alyssa. She was my friend, and a beautiful person who touched my life and the lives of so many others.

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @ShelleyAcook