What grieving people need from you

By Julia McKinnell - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

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When a friend’s son commits suicide or a co-worker’s sister dies, it’s hard to know what to say and do. Often, people worry they’re not a “huggy” enough person to be of comfort. But just reliably showing up is the first place to start, writes author Val Walker in a new book called The Art of Comforting: What To Say and Do For People In Distress.

Walker, who trains counsellors to help people deal with grief and loss, writes, “I’ve heard grieving and distraught people lament how others didn’t follow through with their promises, which hurt them more than anyone’s lack of affection or warmth. Their friendly, sunny friends who promised to ‘be there’ for them dropped off the face of the Earth after they dropped off their casseroles during the first week of the tragedy.”

A distressed person will be comforted if you tell them, “I can call you Monday night,” but then make sure you call. “People in distress suffer more when they are left in the dark about when contact will be made. No one wants to appear needy by having to call out for help.”

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The beginning of the end of frosh week

By Julia Belluz and Nicholas Kohler - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph Andrew Tolson/ Pawel Dwulit/CP Images

Natasha Zapanta, a cheery first-year Queen’s University business student in a perfectly manicured first-week outfit, won’t be telling her grandchildren about any Old School-worthy hijinks. Frosh week for this 17-year-old involved scavenger hunts, a video dance party and “Commerce Cares”—random acts of kindness visited upon unsuspecting fellow students by commerce freshmen. “There was nighttime partying,” she admits, “but we just stayed in the residence hall.” Most of her friends are also 17, below Ontario’s legal drinking age and, while alcohol is readily available, they’ve been warned not to indulge.

For biochemistry major Connor Forbes, the week was so low-key it threatened to dampen that famous Queen’s school spirit altogether. The gloom extended even to the engineering faculty, where students were this year banned from the school’s ancient move-in day tradition, in which engineers paint themselves purple and taunt incoming freshmen. Engineering society president Victoria Pleavin, citing complaints, sent an email to all engineering students warning them that anyone caught engaged in the practice would be escorted off campus. “Move-in day was really an introduction to the fun of the school and gave you a sense of community,” says Forbes. “The event is gone and we don’t know if it’s coming back. They took it away.”

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Justin Peter Ronald Bouvier 1993-2009

By Jen Cutts - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 9 Comments

Justin Peter Ronald Bouvier was born on Nov. 3, 1993, in Timmins, Ont., to Peter, a city bus driver, and Lori-Anne, a homemaker. The youngest in a blended family of seven children, Justin was a happy arrival for brother Harvey, who had five older sisters. Harvey had to wait for his new playmate, though; Justin was born three weeks premature and had pneumonia, and was sent to the McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton. Once Justin did come home, Harvey was disappointed that his baby brother didn’t already know how “to play cars like I wanted him to.”

Justin was playing soccer with his brother, though, “as soon as he could kick a ball,” says sister Tanya. He was small but energetic, always running around, she says. “I told him, ‘With those muscular calves, you’re gonna be a soccer star.’ ” Harvey and Justin also joined karate, and, with their friend Josh, liked to pretend to be the crime-fighting brothers from the 3 Ninjas movies. Justin also loved to draw, and once made a guitar out of “whatever he could find, paper plates, straws, dental floss for the strings,” says Tanya. Continue…

Michael Mariak Jok 1992-2009

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 10 Comments

Michael Mariak Jok was born Feb. 12, 1992, in Kapoeta, in southern Sudan. He was the third child of Elizabeth Mach and Jok Tuil, both rebel soldiers who met in Ethiopia, where they trained with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Mariak is the Dinka word for “disaster”; Michael, as he was later known, was born amidst the country’s recent civil war, which pitted the northern Muslim government against the mostly Christian south, and ultimately claimed two million lives, one of the last century’s most brutal wars.

Kapoeta, the crowded, de facto capital of the rebel-controlled south, was a shell of a town. The hospital, school and many buildings had been flattened by bombs. Food was scarce: most people survived on three kilograms of corn per week. Disease and malnourishment were rampant. Queuing for water could take six hours. Elizabeth and Jok, who stood seven feet tall, lived in a mud-walled hut (according to custom, Jok’s children took his first name as their surname). Continue…

Kenneth John Shane 1959-2009

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 21 Comments

Kenneth John Shane was born on Feb. 5, 1959, in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., to Lorraine Théberge, a homemaker, and Norbert Shane, an engineer at the local copper smelter. Even among the five Shane children, known for their strong wills, Kenny stuck out: he was stubborn, determined and focused on whatever was at hand—hockey, school, the bicycle his father bought him, complete with wooden blocks on the pedals.

He attended Séminaire St-Michel and left for Brazil shortly after graduation on a year-long exchange, an experience his siblings believe changed the course of his life. Upon his return he took a three-year biochemistry course at the Northern College of Applied Arts and Technology and in 1980 went to work at the smelter, alongside his father. He lasted eight months before buying a one-way ticket from New York City to Brussels for $169. The resulting voyage would last 28 years and take him well over 120,000 km across all seven continents. Continue…

Norma Ann Wright 1941-2009

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 3 Comments

Norma Ann Wright was born on March 11, 1941, to Niel “Mac” and Helena “Pat” McCuish, in Sudbury, Ont., and grew up in nearby Burwash. The village, where Mac worked as postmaster, was built around the Burwash Industrial Farm, a correctional facility that offered early lessons in compassion: the inmates coexisted with residents, fulfilling their manual labour needs. An outgoing girl with glacier-blue eyes, Norma, an only child, was happiest with other kids, playing outdoors until the coyotes began to howl.

“Nonnie,” as she was often called, inherited her dad’s warmth but was often at odds with her mom, who had been hardened by a difficult upbringing. After Grade 10, she spent summers waitressing in Wasaga Beach, and used her earnings to pay for boarding school. When she graduated, nursing was a natural choice, and she trained in Sudbury. Norma loved the contact with patients, and “the challenges of getting someone well again,” says daughter Rachel. Continue…

Ryan Bartt Chute 1980-2009

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 5 Comments

R yan Bartt Chute was born on Sept. 13, 1980, in Moose Jaw, Sask., the second of four children to Bartt and Marla Chute. His parents were grain farmers whose sprawling fields, located about 25 km north of town, had been in the family since the 1920s. A “fun-loving” child, Ryan “loved to tuck his head in the crook of your neck and cuddle,” says Marla. He was drawn to the outdoors—particularly whatever his dad was doing. As a toddler, he had his own corner in the tractor cab, complete with a pillow and blanket. “When he got tired, he’d lay down and have a sleep,” says Bartt. The harvest was an early source of fascination. In late August, he would spend hours in the fields with his dad, watching him combine the lentils, peas and wheat.

A curious boy, Ryan trailed Bartt in the workshop, tinkering with the machinery. Like his father, he was eager to try new things, and fuelled his bent for adventure with dirt bikes, jet skis and snowmobiles, later learning to drive a motorcycle and a big rig. In school, Ryan’s ability to elicit laughter made him a favourite among his classmates, if not always his teachers. “He spent a fair bit of time in the hallway,” says friend Jason Doney. He extended his good-natured teasing to sisters Andrea and Alana, but was also protective—his brother Reid, born in 1985, died in infancy, and Ryan kept a close eye on them. Continue…

In the thrall of American nobility

By Robert Fulford - Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

The world saw the Kennedys as a dazzling emblem of the United States, the uniquely American fusion of politics, money, glamour, reckless sexual appetite­—and tragedy.

But their unprecedented family pride and solidarity placed them far outside what most Americans, rich or poor, consider the American style. They resembled European nobility more than any other U.S. family. They were like English dukes in the casual acceptance of their inherent superiority. Some might be disliked for this audacious self-assertion, but glamour made the Kennedys loved. Continue…

Tarivona Asher Mutsengi 1983-2009

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 6 Comments

Tarivona Asher Mutsengi was born on March 8, 1983, in Bulawayo, a city in southwestern Zimbabwe, the first of five children to Philip Gilbert, a businessman, and his wife, Martha. As a child, Asher, as everyone called him, spent most of his time in the nearby town of Plumtree, where Philip owned a gas station, and the family had enough land to grow watermelons and maize. During holidays, cousins, aunts and uncles would descend on their garden. With his wide smile and quick wit, Asher was always “the centre of attention,” says sister Rumbidzai, naturally assuming the leadership role in childhood games, pretending he was a priest (the family were devout Catholics) or a doctor. Whenever one of the kids had a loose tooth, he insisted that the new one would grow in faster if they let him remove it—which they did. “We believed everything that he told us because he was so convincing,” says Rumbidzai.

In addition to their fields in Plumtree, the family had a farm in Gutu. At the time, they could have afforded to hire farmhands, but “my father preferred us doing it, so that we experienced it,” says Rumbidzai. Philip rewarded his children for good grades, and Asher had no trouble meeting those expectations; he was once given a bicycle for his academic achievements, and would let Rumbidzai ride it—as long as she paid him in chocolate. A member of the debate club, Asher held firm to his convictions. The only time he didn’t make the top spot in his class was on purpose, after an argument with his father. Says Rumbidzai, “He liked stressing his point, even if it was a losing side.” Continue…