It's OK to cry, it's OK to show that emotion
In the second week of January 2021, Williams Lake First Nation Chief Willie Sellars addressed his community at Sugar Cane not merely as an administrator managing a crisis, but as a leader tending to the soul of a people. With 29 confirmed COVID-19 cases and the fresh loss of community member Byron Louie, Sellars understood that the pandemic's cruelest imposition on Indigenous communities was not only biological but ceremonial — severing the very rituals of collective grief that have long been the architecture of healing. His address was a reminder that in times of rupture, the most radical act of leadership is to name what is being lost and insist, nonetheless, that the means to endure remain.
- A community death and a fast-moving outbreak have forced Williams Lake First Nation to confront COVID-19 not just as a public health emergency but as a direct assault on the cultural practices that sustain them through loss.
- The demand for physical isolation strikes at the heart of Indigenous grieving traditions, where healing has always moved through togetherness — the hug, the shared story, the gathered presence — leaving people to mourn in unfamiliar solitude.
- Chief Sellars responded by mapping every available lifeline: nursing hotlines, virtual health services, crisis lines, and a cultural coordinator offering both traditional medicines and a human ear, insisting these supports are not peripheral but essential.
- Two furnished duplexes are now standing by as isolation units, a Red Cross activity guide is circulating on social media to keep families culturally connected, and 25 Moderna doses are arriving for elders with weekly shipments promised.
- The community is wounded but not without structure — what is taking shape is a layered response that holds modern medical infrastructure alongside older, deeper knowledge about how people survive together.
Chief Willie Sellars began his address on the morning of January 15, 2021, not with numbers but with silence — a moment held for Byron Louie, who had died the day before. Only then did he speak to what the community already felt: that these were punishing times, and that the pandemic was asking something particularly cruel of his people.
For Williams Lake First Nation, grief has never been a private matter. It lives in the gathering of bodies, in shared stories, in the physical comfort of presence. A virus that demanded isolation was dismantling the very practices that had carried the community through hardship before. With 29 confirmed cases at Sugar Cane by that afternoon, Sellars knew that case counts alone would not hold people together.
Much of his address was devoted to naming the supports available: the Three Corners Nursing Line, virtual services through the First Nations Health Authority, two crisis lines, and cultural coordinator David Archie, who could offer traditional medicines or simply listen. Sellars also gave his community something less tangible but equally important — permission. Permission to cry, to feel, to break open rather than hold grief sealed inside. He spoke from experience, not sentiment: allowing yourself to grieve, he said, is how you begin to recover.
On the practical side, two duplexes on Old Road had been converted into isolation units, stocked and ready. The Red Cross had provided a 21-day activity guide to help families stay connected to each other and to their culture during separation. And vaccination was arriving — 25 Moderna doses for elders, with Interior Health committing to weekly deliveries.
What Sellars offered his community that morning was neither false reassurance nor a catalogue of suffering. It was a clear-eyed account of a people in crisis who nonetheless possessed — in their formal health infrastructure and in their older, inherited knowledge — the means to move through it together.
Chief Willie Sellars stood before his community on a Friday morning in mid-January 2021 with difficult news to deliver. The Williams Lake First Nation was in the grip of a COVID-19 outbreak, and one of their own had just died. Before he spoke about case counts and vaccination schedules, Sellars paused for a moment of silence in honor of Byron Louie, who had passed away the day before.
When Sellars finally broke the silence, his words turned inward. He acknowledged what everyone in the room already knew: these were punishing times for both the leadership and the people they served. The virus was spreading through their community with the speed and indifference it showed everywhere else. But what made this moment different, Sellars suggested, was how his people would have to grieve. In First Nations communities, grief is not a solitary act. It arrives with hugs, with the gathering of people to share stories, to sit together in the weight of loss. A pandemic that demanded isolation was asking them to abandon the very rituals that held them together.
By the afternoon of January 15th, the outbreak had produced 29 confirmed cases at Sugar Cane. The number was stark, but Sellars knew that statistics alone would not sustain people through what was coming. He spent much of his address laying out the mental health infrastructure the community had assembled: the Three Corners Nursing Line, virtual health services through the First Nations Health Authority, two separate crisis lines for those in acute distress. He named David Archie, the community's cultural coordinator, as someone available to offer both traditional Indigenous medicines and simply a listening presence. These were not afterthoughts or secondary supports. They were lifelines.
Sellars spoke directly about the permission people needed to give themselves. It was not weakness to cry. It was not failure to show emotion. In fact, he suggested, the opposite was true—that holding grief inside only prolonged the suffering. "Get it out," he said, "because you feel immediately better afterward." He was not offering platitudes. He was naming something his community understood from long experience: that survival sometimes means allowing yourself to break, and that breaking in the presence of others is how you heal.
Beyond the immediate crisis response, the community was moving forward on practical fronts. Two vacant duplexes on Old Road had been furnished and stocked with groceries and beds to serve as isolation units for those who needed them. More were being planned. The Red Cross had provided an activity guide—21 Days of Hope—designed to help families maintain connection and cultural practice even while separated. It was available on the community's Facebook page, a small but deliberate effort to keep people tethered to one another.
Vaccination was beginning to arrive. Interior Health had committed to delivering 25 doses of Moderna vaccine for the community's elders in the coming week, with a promise of weekly shipments to follow. Sellars expressed gratitude for that commitment, understanding that vaccination represented not just medical protection but a signal that the wider health system was paying attention, that the community was not being left to fend for itself.
What emerged from Sellars' address was a portrait of a community in crisis but not in collapse. The outbreak was real, the death was real, the grief was real. But so was the infrastructure of care—both the formal mental health services and the deeper, older knowledge about how to survive together. Sellars was not minimizing what lay ahead. He was simply insisting that his people had the resources, both external and internal, to move through it.
Citações Notáveis
Everyone grieves in their own way, and in First Nations communities, we grieve in a way that brings us together with hugs and sharing stories.— Chief Willie Sellars
It's OK to cry, it's OK to show that emotion. Get it out because you feel immediately better afterward.— Chief Willie Sellars
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Chief Sellars spend so much time on mental health when the immediate crisis was a virus spreading through the community?
Because a virus is only one kind of threat. In a small community, especially one with historical trauma, the psychological weight of loss and isolation can be as lethal as the disease itself. He was naming something that statistics miss.
He mentioned that First Nations communities grieve differently—with hugs and gathering. How does a pandemic change that?
It doesn't change it. It makes it impossible. That's the cruelty of it. The very practices that hold people together are the ones the virus forbids. Sellars was acknowledging that contradiction directly, not pretending it didn't exist.
The community had already set up isolation units and crisis lines before the outbreak peaked. Was that foresight or just good luck?
It was preparation born from knowing their own vulnerability. First Nations communities have learned, often through tragedy, that they cannot wait for outside help to arrive. They build their own infrastructure.
What did Sellars mean when he said it was "not a time to be proud, but a time to be forgiving, sincere and loving"?
He was giving permission for something that pride often prevents—admitting you're struggling, asking for help, showing up for others without performance. In a crisis, those things matter more than maintaining a strong front.
The vaccination plan seemed almost secondary in his remarks. Why?
Because vaccines are a future thing. People were grieving now. The mental health supports were immediate. He was addressing what his community needed in that moment, not what they would need in three weeks.