Elfrieda’s suicide attempt on opening concert day

Elfrieda Von Riesen’s suicide attempt on the day of her opening concert turns a hoped-for return to music into an emergency and draws her family back into the work of keeping her safe. The concert had been reinstated after Elfrieda changed her mind again; the rehearsal had gone well, and although she looked drained, she seemed excited about opening night. Nearly two weeks earlier, Yolandi Von Riesen had said goodbye to her sister in the doorway of her Winnipeg home and promised to write. Now, with the concert approaching, Yolandi was away from Winnipeg when her mother called with news of another attempt.

Concert Day and Emergency

Her mother and Tina Loewen went to Elfrieda’s home to see her, although Elfrieda had politely asked them to stay away while she prepared for the concert. When she did not answer the door, her mother used her key to enter and found Elfrieda in the bathroom after she had harmed herself and swallowed bleach. Elfrieda was conscious and alive, and asked her mother to take her to the train tracks. Her mother held her while Tina called emergency services; responders took Elfrieda back to hospital. The bleach had caused her throat to close, and she was placed on a respirator in intensive care. Her wrists were expected to recover. Yolandi, waiting at the airport, set out for Winnipeg to be with her sister and mother.

Hospital Care and Family Vigil

The attempt’s consequences extended into a prolonged struggle over how Elfrieda would be cared for and who could speak for her. Lottie challenged staff when Elfrieda had not seen a doctor for days, arguing that being a patient did not cancel her humanity and that cooperation could not be treated as a condition for getting well. Yolandi tried to help by proposing written communication, but the psychiatrist refused to exchange notes, saying he did not have time to pass a notebook back and forth. These encounters left the family trying to protect Elfrieda while working around a system whose routines and limits they could not control.

Their fear of another discharge was sharpened by an earlier family loss: Yolandi recalled that she and Elfrieda had repeatedly begged a hospital in East Village not to release their father, but he was released and died by suicide. At Elfrieda’s later hospitalization, Yolandi again asked staff not to let her go. A nurse reassured her that Nic had already explained he was in Spain and that Elfrieda would not be leaving soon. The promise offered some relief, but the family’s vigilance arose from experience: to them, discharge was not simply a change in care but a moment when the people they loved might once again be beyond their protection.

Later Loss and Burial

Elfrieda survived the opening-day attempt, but later died after being struck by a train, repeating the means by which her father had died. At the funeral home, Yolandi remembered a wry remark Elfrieda had made as a teenager while their family prepared supper. The ordinary family memory returned amid a second, final loss, making the violence feel not like an isolated event but like something that had travelled through the family.

After Elfrieda’s death, Yolandi wanted to keep some of her ashes in Toronto, but Nic opposed dividing them. They were buried beneath a large tree at Elmwood Cemetery in Winnipeg, rather than in East Village, where Lottie had suggested placing her beside her father. Nic said Elfrieda had expressly rejected burial in East Village. The final arrangements thus followed Elfrieda’s stated wishes, even as Yolandi continued to wonder whether taking her to Zurich might have allowed her to die peacefully and not alone.

The Sister Beyond the Crisis

At the airport, Yolandi bought cream to rub onto Elfrieda’s body and recalled the habits and qualities that made her more than the focus of a family emergency: her laughter, her way of mocking sentimentality, and the calm she gave her sister. Yolandi also remembered trimming Elfrieda’s long eyelashes with their mother’s sewing scissors when snow obscured her vision. These intimate details frame the attempt through the bond between the sisters and Yolandi’s impulse to care for Elfrieda, while keeping the person she loves distinct from the crisis that has overtaken her.