Chronicle 2018

By Catharine Heddle 1989

K endra Fisher may always have been a bit of a rebel, but she never set out to be a reformer. That part happened by accident. Joining Havergal in Grade 12, she found the school to be a refuge from small-town Ontario, where her mother was an all-too-visible politician in the provincial government of the day. The new environment was vastly different from the place of her roots, but the world behind the ivy was welcoming and Kendra thrived in her new community and in the small, academically rigorous classes. An avid hockey player since childhood, Kendra played for the Toronto Aeros for that last year of high school. She also became a carded member of Team Canada’s hockey program. After graduation, her hockey career started to take off. But inside, she was in turmoil. Her anxiety mimicked a heart attack so severe that she was taken to the emergency room. At Team Canada tryouts (between practice periods), she would cower in a stairwell and cry. Her parents tried to help but they didn’t know what was wrong…and neither did Kendra. Her illness became so crippling that when her dream came true – she was invited to join Team Canada – she broke her own heart by walking away. Fast forward through five hopeless years of anxiety, panic, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and agoraphobia…and another five years of slow, difficult recovery. In 2010, Kendra found herself sadly holding the memorial notice of young Daron Richardson, a 14-year-old competitive ice hockey player who took her life in her parents’ basement. Kendra’s silence and shame about her own battle with mental illness weighed heavily in that moment:

“I felt that in being silent, I was part of the problem.” She knew that she had to speak up. Although the prospect terrified her, she knew that it couldn’t be worse than the 10 years she had just spent hiding in her apartment. Her first talk about mental health was to a group of 50 students at a Toronto District Catholic School Board symposium. Kendra calmed her nerves by reminding herself that one in four people in the audience was most likely living with some kind of mental illness. Sure enough, a young girl approached Kendra afterwards to thank her for opening her eyes to her sister’s struggles. Kendra is now a sought-after speaker, working on campaigns such as Bell Let’s Talk and giving media interviews all across the country. She still plays ice hockey and is on Team Canada’s inline hockey team, and has competed at the national and international levels. With wife Kristy and toddler Finley at home, a lesser person might step out of the spotlight for a bit of a break. But not Kendra. “I don’t really aim small,” she says. Impatient for the health-care system to proactively address mental health, Kendra has started a new movement which she calls mentallyfit. With Kristy handling operations and Kendra as the front woman, the movement mobilizes caring community members – councillors, teachers, fitness trainers, librarians, everyone – to obtain mental health training so that they can extend a hand to people who are struggling and surround them with readily available community support. Oh, and she’s also a full-time firefighter. It seems that helping people is just in her DNA.

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PHOTO: NIAMH BARRY 2009