We are all on the journey of loss from Carberry crash

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2023 (842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sixteen years ago, slumped at my kitchen table, I sobbed and railed against the inconceivable reality that I was about to open the Saturday Free Press and find my partner’s face on the obituaries page.

My head on the still-folded paper, I let the newsprint under my head absorb my tears.

I knew, of course, that my partner had died. But seeing his name in ink made it real. His passing was public fact. People who had never met him now knew he was gone.

The sudden loss of someone we love feels like more than unfairness, more than injustice; it feels like an act of violence. It is a visceral pain, a depth of longing and helplessness we didn’t know possible. The prospect of living life without the person is inconceivable and scary, unbearable.

Grief is a personal, unique and lonely journey for each person it touches. When public tragedy amplifies that experience, it becomes a shared pain, a deep wound felt throughout the community.

This week, our province is reeling from the tragic highway accident that took 15 of our elders and broke innumerable hearts.

Over the days and weeks to come, the names of those lost in and near Dauphin will appear on this newspaper’s pages. We will learn their stories, how they were loved, what it means to be without them.

The private, personal and painful experience of grief will be opened a little bit. We will learn what those families know, and feel what everyone feels when they see their loved one in the obituary pages: we don’t grieve alone.

I’m one of those people who reads the obituaries every Saturday. The stories told there — how people came to live here, where they fell in love, how much they will be missed — paint a rich portrait of who we are as Manitobans. It’s a reminder of our interconnectedness and value to one another.

Once in a while there is a familiar name, a reminder of a forgotten connection. A chance to reach out to someone I haven’t spoken with for some time and reminisce. The pain and love come through in equal measure.

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In an era when we can share information instantly online, we still commit the life stories of our loved ones to paper and ink. It’s akin to scratching our name in a tree: I was here. I am cherished forever.

There is a fragile permanence to the printed page. We can touch it, clip it, tuck it away in a special place. Physicality makes our grief real. Our loved ones are there, present, smiling at us, remembered with fondness, known by others.

This is why I could not open the paper that morning 16 years ago. I wasn’t ready to confront the permanence of my loss. Though I knew he was gone, somehow his name and photograph in ink would make this new reality utterly undeniable. Opening the paper was the very beginning of my acceptance of my new journey.

Today and in days to come, there will be some tear-stained newsprint beneath low-hanging heads. There will be stories of immigration, romance, trial and triumph in our pages. There will be beautiful photos of beloved aunties, uncles, parents and grandparents.

Dauphin does not grieve alone. Many of us will read these stories and share in the shock, the love, and the painful first steps of an unexpected and unwelcome journey.

Rebecca Chambers

Rebecca explores what it means to be a Winnipegger by layering experiences and reactions to current events upon our unique and sometimes contentious history and culture. Her column appears alternating Saturdays.

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