Cliff Derksen leaves behind message of hope, acceptance

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This article was published 04/06/2022 (1591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pursue your dreams and accept who you are — that’s the message Cliff Derksen wanted to have shared at his funeral Saturday.

Growing up in a conservative household in Saskatchewan, Cliff aspired to become an artist. Although his family told him a career in art was against their Christian values, later in life he became a painter, photographer and sculptor.

Syras Derksen, pastor at Maplecrest Church in Winnipeg, said his father wanted everyone to know: “I am OK as I am and as I was created to be.”

But Cliff was more than an artist. He was a milkman, construction worker, pastor, camp director, delivery driver, and owner of his own janitorial company. He was also the parent of a murdered child.

Cliff, who died May 22 of cancer at the age of 76, was well-known, along with his wife, Wilma, for how they promoted forgiveness after the murder of their daughter, Candace, in 1984.

In a letter to the community read at the start of the service, Wilma expressed her thanks to the people of Winnipeg for their support over the years.

“We are coming out of a long goodbye,” she said of the three months since Cliff’s diagnosis of terminal cancer. “It was tough but meaningful, truly the best of times and the worst of times.”

During those months there were many “divine encounters,” she said, adding that Cliff always felt supported by the many who sent notes, cards, letters and jokes.

“Cliff never felt alone,” she said.

Odia Reimer, Cliff’s daughter, said he “faced death with courage.”

One of his sources of strength during that time was the Bible, large passages of which he had memorized — including the entire book of Jonah and the Epistle to the Ephesians.

“He had a lot of deep biblical knowledge,” she said of her father, who after retirement served as a pastor at Maplecrest Church.

Later in life he was able to “fulfill his lifelong dream of being an artist,” she said, noting painting and sculpture was a way for him to work out his grief and hopes, along with his belief in forgiveness.

This included a sculpture called “Seven Weeks” — a reference to the time between Candace’s murder and when her body was found frozen in a shed.

In a blog post before he died, Cliff wrote that “Seven Weeks” made Candace’s life seem final, a “sad dead end.”

But for him and his family that was not the case.

“We all knew there was more, much more to her life,” stated the post.

He then sculpted “Project Angel,” a piece that showed feathered hands turning into wings, “wrists becoming free of bondage, the rope falling away, as she ascends like a bird, ushered by angels to her eternal reward! Freedom without pain and filled with joy,” stated the post.

It was his “no” to the “angry evil man” who had killed her, giving Candace “a legacy as if she’d lived a fruitful human life to the end … It was a sculpture of a successful escape from death, torture and pain! She had a secret; she was still alive! She had escaped the clutches of suffering to a life where all tears are wiped away!”

The service, which was in-person and online, concluded with a song and a slide show of Cliff’s photos of flowers.

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