Valerie G. Barnes Connell Jordan
Northern Advocate
There has been much grief in our communities and beyond recently, so I decided to use a editorial I wrote some time ago.
I have heard from some people they found it helpful, so I decided not the reninvent the wheel this month.
I’ve learned about the deaths of two friends this week.
They are people from different parts of the country, who have been part my life at different times, each with their own place.
It makes me aware that in our busy world it’s hard to find time to honour the lives of those who have been important to us during our lives.
We still live in a death-denying society, where the topic is viewed as taboo, or at least negative, although that is changing to some degree I hope.
We often still here some of the old adages such as “life goes on,” or “it was God’s will,” that come up when there has been a death.
These types of phrases or comments only serve to dismiss the pain of others who are grieving the loss of someone in their lives.
People are interrelated into our lives in many ways, and each person has a number of relationship in their lives.
Although we tend to look at those relationships that are, what we call blood-related, as the most important connections, this is not always so.
Often, people attend the funerals/celebrations of life for people, but are not there in the times of loneliness, a month or more down the road.
It’s important to keep up the connection with people, when they are open to phone calls, or visits, just to keep in touch. And be open to talk about the person they mourn, when they are open to it.
Many people, including my two friends, have had a great impact on my life, but they were not blood relations, unless I look at relationship from a different perspective.
Many aboriginal communities view the connection of people and the environment in terms of relationship, we’re related to all aspects. It’s one I really connect with, but, not everyone is comfortable with.
I remember working in a small community several years ago. Five people in the community died in a very short time, three in one week.
The whole community was impacted by the deaths of those people, but, most of the focus was on the families of these people.
There were two businessmen in the community, who, I’m assuming because of their positions in the community, were always asked to be pallbearers at funerals.
These two men were there as pallbearers at all five funerals, and it was only after some conversation with them that I came to realize the impact the lives of these five people had had on them.
The people were not related to each other, were of different age groups, but, had been part of the lives of each of the two men over a long period of time.
No one noticed that impact.
In the last few years, we have come to learn more about the importance of grieving in our lives.
We know some of the aspects of grief, shock, the anger, denial, depression, and acceptance.
People don’t neatly go through the different stages, one after the other, and come out the other end.
Many times we can go back and forth among the stages. There is no time limit on grieving, the death of someone in our lives leaves our lives changed.
It is important to honour the time of grieving that people need to take, to reassure them that it’s normal to grieve the loss of another person in their lives.
We are also at the time of year when the natural vegetation is dying off to make way for winter.
Our days are getting shorter and our nights longer, a difficult time of year for many people.
Many people suffer from the deprivation of light at this time of year; it causes havoc in their lives.
But, it’s also a time of year, when animals slow down, many hibernate during the winter.
We human beings try to keep going at the same rate as any other time of year, when all around us is calling on us to slow up a bit.
It’s in the quieter times that I can take the opportunity to remember my two friends.
I was with my one friend on the eve of his 50th wedding anniversary and I remember asking him what it’s like to have been married for 50 years.
His immediate response was, “It’s been an adventure.”
Life is an adventure, and the times we come face to face with death in our lives, are also times that bring us closer to life.
Death is part of the adventure of life, it’s a hard part, and the grief of those who are affected by a death, needs to be respected.
