Grief & Loss: What To Do?

I can hardly write this without balling my eyes out. What do you do when there has been an accumulation of loss and you don't want any more? I know what the social worker inside me says - deal with it, and move on when you're ready.

No one has died recently (other than the talented Heath Ledger) but everywhere I look there has been loss - death, change, deterioration, and loss of a way of life. I thought I had been dealing with things well enough, but I think the final straw was knowing that the one community I had been able to call home is facing significant change, and possibly closure at some point. It wasn't like I didn't see it coming. I'd been hearing about the possibility for decades, long before I chose to live there for 12 years.

The losses vary:

• loss of so many family members to cancer - 3 sister-in-laws, all under age 50; all of my grandparents, and two uncles, not to mention several distant relatives, and family friends; and others coping with cancer right now. I hate cancer...


• pets - lost my feline friend Via in April after nearly 10 years with her - she came from that tiny community I call home; and then last fall I lost my canine friend, Penny, who lived in that community with my parents after I moved away. She was nearly 14 years old.


• my father has had some significant health issues that have affected his whole way of life and needs more care than he expected, and making changes in my parents lives they weren't really counting on.


• the potential closure of this small community.

I think back of all the memories, and how most everything relates to this small community - it has been the anchor for so much of my life. No matter where I have lived all over this country, this community has been there for me, a constant. I am now in my 30th home in 41 years, and every chance I got in those 41 years, I went to visit that community. I lived there for 12, had grandparents there for decades, and my parents retired there for more than a decade. I still have a house there (co-owned with the ex) on my family's land, granted to my great-grandfather near the turn of the century. I was married there; I raised my only daughter there; I built my house with my own hands there (with the ex) from the ground up.

The fondest of memories flood me, and I know many of my faithful readers will share in them - if they weren't there, they have similar memories:

• swimming up in Big Pond, jumping off diving point into the chilly waters. We numbed up after the first few jumps, and swam sometimes twice or three times a day (counting those late night dips in our undergarments!)


• walking in across the many frozen ponds in winter, sliding down the hills on our bums, happiest when there was a thick crust of snow and "glitter" (ice rain)...moonlit or the brilliant sun, made no difference to us - it was so good to go out, even if the CRACK! of the ice made us all screech out loud!


• the sound of outboard motor boats heading out to traps and nets in the early morning, and then returning in the afternoons; on calm days, you could hear the fishermen (and women!) talking to one another, clanging their gear around


• the blow of the "steamer" (coastal ferry) when she came into the harbour, boats like the Tavener, the Bonavista, the Coaster, the Runner...


• the sweet smell of Mayflowers on Mother's Day, picked on the hills surrounding the harbour


• the sight of an older gentleman, sitting on the counter of a local store, looking out the window, greeting all who entered the store. He used to run that store, wrapping sliced bologna in brown paper and string that my grandmother saved up in a paper bag


• going out in the boat on Sundays for a picnic on some island beach, or shoreline cove, exploring what we could, having a boil-up for supper


• parties at my house - many knew how they went...usually started with playing cards well into the night, generous amounts of alcohol, loud music, food fights, dancing on the coffee table, and the notorious "pool party" and "lipstick caper"...I can still picture S.B. with my ex's shorts on, and fuzzy slippers, doing his impression of Superman...


• picking berries on the hills, hoping the bears didn't come along and catch you - blueberries, partridgeberries, marshberries (most called them meshberries), and the elusive and much coveted bakeapples - God help you if you trampled any of those and were caught by the serious berrypickers!


• stomping the night away at the Cramalott Inn (local gathering place, for drinks, cooking up a scoff, jokes, stories, music, cards, and more). How many nights did folks fall asleep to the sound of shoes thumping the floor late into the night as things really got rocking...and how many packs of cards, radios, tables, and who knows what else got thrown over the cliff in the heat of an argument or frustration. SOOO many memories for that place - dancing in the dark, jugs of water thrown into a surprised face, my sister writing in "the book" and taking roll call, mussel boils, the "outhouse" (a funnel connected to a pipe that ran to the ocean), the stacks of beer bottles that paid for the place's expenses, the many colors of the Cramalott Inn walls...J.B. holding his beer bottle to the light to check for fingers...


• card games at the school, and getting the "booby prize"; dart games at the school and the sour looks from others when you scored well or finished a game!


• weddings at the Orangemen's Lodge, and then later at the school - another host of memories...live bands, djs, the bending floor when the crowds were up to stomp out a good jig, arguing over what music to play when there was no dj, waiting for your turn in the one toilet per gender, standing around outside with the smokers for a bit of "fresh" air, and trying not to fall into the ditch on the way home


• the two-room school where my daughter went from K-5 before we moved away. She spent all those years in a grade by herself, as did many others over the years, and their Christmas concerts - the kids were so good to remember so much, even if you couldn't understand much of it (well, I couldn't, with my "outsider ears")


• going house to house on Christmas night, for a drink, a snack, and a barrel of laughs - like when J.B. bounced his way across somene's bridge (deck) on Moon Shoes...


• walking "over around" to get the mail on mail days, and standing around while it was called out while you waited for each coveted piece of mail, parcel card, Sears catalog, or store flyer


• meeting the ferry when it arrived in the harbour and tied up at the wharf - didn't matter if you didn't have anyone coming on the ferry - you went just to see who else did, or what freight came on the boat, or just for something to do; it was often the highlight of the day, unless you were going on it, and you were ready to hurl your guts out before you even boarded, smelling the stench of diesel fumes...


• huge fires up in the "arm" on Bonfire Night in November - the kids would work for weeks prior, dragging off all the old deadwood they could find, taking down old hen houses, shacks, fish flakes, you name it, keeping the harbour tidy of old relics


• going for walks around the harbour, lap after lap, across the breakwater - you didn't dare not take it to the very end and touch the ground before turning around


• seeing O.B. out walking, day after day, making his rounds, so used to going to the power house in the days before we were hooked into the main power grid.
• playing over on "the head" and hiding amongst the rocks, climbing down "the devil's slide" or crossing "the bar" at low tide, hoping you made it back before it began to rise
• walking down to Sandbanks, where they used to keep the sheep

I could go on, and on, and on...and you know what...I feel better already, having revisited memory lane. At least the crying has stopped...for now...