MOORHEAD — Madeline Gebhart had a dream and was able to reach her brother in time.
she wakes up To a world where he is an accountant or pursuing a career working outdoors. He definitely helps people. He loved people, as did his boys, teammates who had spent a life of hockey and baseball in this Minnesota border community. Perhaps he’s somewhere quietly at the center of the party, smiling and talking.
Whatever he’s doing, he’s giving her something new to brag about. I cried the day he was born because he took the chance to have a sister.But he was born on a cold January night, She crawled into a hospital bed with him and her newborn brother took her heart.
It’s just a moment, but there is relief and possibility. The relief she got for him. And what could he possibly do, being the best person she knows.
But feelings disappear. Then she faces reality. Her brother, Eli Johnson, committed suicide on September 11, 2017 when she was 19.
“I woke up and thought I’d never talk to him again,” said Gebert, 28. “Your body physically aches from the loss every day. A call I didn’t want. He was so hurt I couldn’t help him.”
Now in its third season, the Squirt Bs’ Eli Johnson Memorial Hockey Tournament will be held December 2-4 at the Cullen Hockey Center. This tournament provides an opportunity to remember Eli and continue the conversation about mental health. This is just one of his projects to remember him.
Dave Wallis/The Forum
The Johnson family has not touched Eli’s bedroom in the Moorhead home. The house is full of pictures of him smiling.He never held a room with his voice, but anyone who knew him knows his smile brought audience.
Mental illness is a disease. And I don’t want you to feel alone like he did.
Annie Johnson
They look out the window of their house to see Madeline playing goalkeeper for him or Foursquare, discovering yet another talent in him. There are memories in the house of him playing Barbie dolls with her in return for her kindness.
The Johnson family still has his phone number saved on their cell phone. They put on his clothes and hope that his smell will show up for just a second.
“I’m having a hard time letting go of Eli,” said Eli’s mother, Annie Johnson. She said, “In every nook and cranny of our homes, as we move through the day, there’s something that brings Eli to our hearts. Always.”
Every day is Eli for the Johnson family. But every day without Eri.
Annie hates the word suicide. When Gebhart hears sirens or sees police car lights flashing, he struggles.
The family never talks about the day Eli died. It’s too traumatic, and they study that discussing the details is harmful.
David Samson/The Forum
But they are not silent. They fight through the pain in the hope that no one else feels it.
“Eli had a great life between dashes,” said Annie. “I look around our house and see all the pictures of him smiling. He was polite, respectable, a perfect kid. Eli was sick and not a bad person. He I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, mental illness is a disease, and I don’t want anyone to feel alone like he did.”
The Johnsons found a voice for Eli, but they needed a community.
‘Doing nothing is not an option’
Eli’s story is like Moorhead folklore, whether it’s about his athleticism or how people were drawn to him. From the first day, I was proud of the voice of her mother who told me that she was born 17 minutes after giving birth and slept through the night. He captained his hockey team and baseball team at Moorhead High School and attended Concordia His College in Moorhead to play baseball.
He was never big, but he was seemingly good at everything and took every challenge seriously.
Moorhead’s longtime hockey and baseball coach, Tony Kunka, said the most ground balls he ever hit were with Eli. He wears something light blue at every match.It’s Eli’s favorite color, and when asked why, his sister and mother laughed and replied, “Because it suits you.”
“He certainly wasn’t the biggest or strongest, but his level of competition was higher than anyone else,” Kunka said. “He always wanted to practice and he was coming early to get more work.”
Michael Vosburg/Forum Communications Co.
He was smiling, talented, and loved.
Gebhart says people still come to her and talk to her about Eli, whether they’ve known Eli for five years or five seconds. It’s almost as if Moorehead doesn’t want his story to end.
Amber Ferry, a 43-year-old accountant, has three children who play hockey in her hometown of Moorhead. Her husband has been doing strength training since Eli was about ten years old. It was seeing the pain in her community and in her husband’s face that prompted Ferry to do something.
“Eli Johnson was not an alienated child. He was a man,” Ferry said. “Captain of multiple sports teams and well-liked. This is not the corner shy, quiet kid. We all saw the kids in him because this was the kid we wanted our kids to be.”
We all saw the kids in him because this was the kid we wanted our kids to be.
amber ferry
Ferry was scrolling through Twitter while at the rink for his son’s game, two years after Eli’s death. She’s tweeting that Osseo her hockey is approaching Mental Health Awareness Day in honor of Warlord hockey player Max her Marvin, who committed suicide in December 2018 at the age of 19. I saw.
Hoping to get a blueprint of where to start, she reached out to Max Foundation board member Conway Marvin. he told her to do it. After emphasizing with him that she was not a mental health professional and that she wanted some more advice, he said words that pierced her. But she has no choice but to do nothing. “
There Ferry teamed up with Megan McFarlane, who was captain of the Moorhead women’s hockey team that same season, and hockey mom Leslie Barty.
They got off to a small start with a youth hockey game that brought together teams from Moorhead and Warroad. A mental health professional was on the rink to answer questions, distribute information, and start conversations.
Ferry said parents in the community wanted more.
What started with just one youth hockey game is now
It spreads mental health awareness throughout Moorhead. A hockey player is taught about mental health as part of his training from the age of five. The curriculum continues throughout the hockey year.
At M3-sponsored golf tournaments, parents and their children answer questions on each hole that arise out of anxiety about how parents want them to behave in their cars after the game.They have held two of his hockey tournaments, one of which his
Eli Johnson Memorial Hockey Tournament
mental health discussions are discussed openly with some experts and resources at hand at the rink.
David Samson/The Forum
The M3 organization added people like Kelli Gast, a professor of social work at Concordia.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in anxiety in sports,” Gast said. “The pressure and stress has always been there, but social media has added to it. The culture of youth sports has put a lot of pressure on kids and taken away the fun. Maybe, but we weren’t talking about it. Now we are.
And last spring, M3 released a free app called M3 Moorhead. Ferry figured the kids liked going to the rink, so she had a conversation there. Now it’s on your phone in the form of an app with a way to get help and information about issues like depression and anxiety. The app also has videos explaining how hockey players, including former Fargo his Force and current Los Angeles Kings forward Alex his Iafaro, are coping with injuries, stress and more. I have.
“I think it’s about talking about it,” Gust said. “Use the word suicide. People are afraid of that word, but we need to teach our children that nothing is ever as bad as the actions you take. Teachers, Moorhead youth hockey kids tell us they’ve brought attention to other kids who are concerned: through education and awareness.”
Contribution / Miriah Sannes Photography
Shortly after Eli died, Gebert moved back in with his parents. She sat weeping at Eli’s grave in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, north of Moorhead. The tombstone is engraved with a baseball bat and hockey stick, along with the phrase Eli used to say, “Come one, come all.” His jersey numbers 23, 20 and 3 are also on the grave, each separated by a heart.
On one visit, months after Eli died, Gebert was alone at Eli’s grave when a small white dog approached and sat with her. He licked her face as she cried. His name was Charlie and the owner was dozing off in his car.
“That’s what Eli told me it was okay,” Gebert said.
If you keep track of how many smiles Chuck has, it’s endless.
Madeline Gebhardt
She started looking for a dog like Charlie. Sure enough, on a dog rescue website, she came across a little white dog named Chuck. Ms. Gebert wrote about the connection she felt with the dog when she reached out to her foster parents, who said they were destined for them. But Chuck was already recruited. Gebhardt was heartbroken, but he told his foster family to contact him if anything changed.
Two weeks later, Chuck was put back into foster care.
“Eli set it up,” says Gebhart. “He knew we needed Chuck.”
In acquiring Chuck, full name Chuck Eli Johnson, Johnson learned that his foster parents have a son named Eli. Chuck wore a light blue collar that read “Come, come” and went well with the blue tuxedo he wore at Gebart’s wedding.
“If you were tracking how many smiles Chuck had, it would be endless,” said Annie. “You can’t help but laugh with him. Like Eli.”
If you or someone you know needs help, “988” is a three-digit national phone number for direct connection to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
