A mother is helping her teenage daughter to come to terms when a friend takes her own life. She poses the question, Is Suicide the Answer? and proceeds to answer it in a measured but purposeful way. Drawing from stories from her own culture and traditions, having been born and raised in Africa, we are introduced to Ogeechee, a teenager whose outlook on life is weighed down by the burden of his disadvantaged circumstances. He does not believe that human help is any good to him, because such help 'does not last'. He goes to the mountain one day, to see if he can get an answer to one of the numerous questions that goes through his mind. What follows is an intervention of one kind or another. Whether it is divine in nature, or merely coincidental, is up to the reader to decide. What we do learn is that no condition is permanent. We make our own future. It is up to each an everyone one of us to discover that mission which sets us on our chosen course in life. The fact that we do not know what the future will bring, should fill us with hope rather than trepidation.
Joy C. Agwu is a Nigerian-born author living in Ireland. Her writings reflect her strong faith and her studies in the area of Psychology. She has been described as a natural born storyteller and she writes intelligently and perceptibly on subjects to do with family, community, parenting, individual suffering.
