Amral.....I just read on the funeral home site that the funeral is at 11am tomorrow.  can you confirm please?

It starts at around 10.30 in the chapel at the Funeral Home and then cremation after at the Forest Lawn Mausoleum  4570 Yonge Street

I will be going to the funeral home this afternoon with my wife, if there are any major time differences I will post. (as you know things don't always start on the exact time  

Liz - I bought the book/play today... finished reading it....

Amral has details for you.

Stay strong dear.  Thinking of you.

Liz - So sorry to hear about your loss, my sincere condolences to yourself and family.

hello Liz, My condolences to you and your children. I know there is not any words that can ease that pain of losing someone so close to your heart. He will live on in his children, you have to hold them close to you and the good memories.

Liz,

Its hard to find words to express my sorry at Dave's passing.

I am so sorry.

Be strong my friend and continue to see him in your children.

I am writing this during his funeral services and we have a candle lit in his name.

With much love and prayers.   

Chameli, I hope you are coping well and that yourself and Children can find peace during this difficult period. My Prayers are with you and your Family.  God Bless.

I attended the funeral this morning and it was such a simple and interesting service.  The Pandit explained every action and chant in English.....which I really liked.

The service culminated with a heartfelt song so beautifully sung by Chami's son.  If you had closed your eyes, you would think it was being done by a professional.  he accompanied himself on the guitar.  I think it brought tears to everyone's eyes.

Chami my dear, I am sure that you were weeping and aching on the inside, but on the outside you were so very brave and strong, hugging and greeting every guest who approached you and you sat through the whole service with such a peaceful look on your face.

You have some very difficult days, weeks and months ahead of you, but from what I saw today it looks like you have a great support group around you.  Draw strength from them, your families and friends, and know that me and the rest of your GNI friends will be here for your.

Vince asked to post this.

ANIMOSITY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES by Vince R.

My first attempt at writing this article takes place minutes after I heard that my long time friend Patricia passed on, after a long struggle with cancer.  During her last years we exchanged lengthy emails  about the challenges with her illness and  glaucoma in my eyes, that could cause blindness.

Patricia’s deepest regret after she passes on, is  not living long enough to see her children and grandchildren grow up and to be with them for at least part of their older  life.  It is with deep sorry for my friend, that I attempt to explain about  ANIMOSITY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, as it relates to families.

Patricia  not being able to live  a long life with her children and grandchildren has  supported my long belief that : Those of us in reasonable good health  don't take the opportunity  to heal wounds  in relationships, when we might have the ability to do so, while  others  with  critical illness, who would like to live longer  with their  families, don't have the same  choice.

Animosity  is one of the most common  forms of  dislike in relationships.   When relating to families, the consequences could be severe  if not resolved.  Animosity caused by sibling reverie in childhood years  would seem silly to be taken to adulthood, but many tarnished by  dislike as children,  continue to do so as adults.

Sometimes miscommunication  could  cause animosity, where a person of influence in a family tells a one-sided story to children  and relationship is broken with a spouse or  other sibling.

This also seems to be a common occurrence with relatives and friends, where information is not verified and a rumour can be so intense, that one person believe it and hold it against another, sometimes for a lifetime.

Animosity between families, relatives and  friends can sometimes last decades, or a lifetime.  The wound, true or false, can be so deeply perceived   that all communication is broken and no one takes the initiative with the first word, to seek forgiveness.

FORGIVENESS IS AN ACTION

Without forgiveness,  there  can  be no resolve from animosity. Sometimes a person would  say they forgive, but their attitude is not followed by an action.  Forgiveness without action  for healing to take place is not a true act of contrition.   Some of us in our religious belief tend to live secular lives, when we are not in  a place of worship.

Lack of healing from  animosity can have serious consequences in our families.  Nothing can change our relationships as sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers. If the other person passes on before forgiveness  is  sought, the guilt can result in  severe consequences.

There are cases where sisters and brothers who were once best friends, broke their relationship because of a simple disagreement  and when one person passes on with  no forgiveness taking place, the other feeling guilty, could experience  deep depression  and eventually die from a heart attack or other forms of depression, including suicide.

It would seem silly for a person to leave instructions, that others in their family not to attend their funeral services. This might be animosity at its highest level.

FAMILY AVOIDANCE.

In  some cases parents [and siblings] are not invited to  children’s wedding, but if  the parent becomes very sick and passes on, the  child feeling  guilty might cause  depression and tremendous upset in their own family, when they realized the severe mistake they made and the deep hurt they caused their parents.

As an example, when a young couple  was  visiting her mother and third husband  during a special event in their town, where most of the hotel rooms  were  taken,  the couple was asked to leave  in order to accommodate the  husband’s unannounced  relatives.  In desperation to find accommodation the younger wife said,  “Let me see if we can stay  at my father’s place”,  to which her husband asked surprisingly ”You have a Dad ! Where was he  when we got married ?”. She replied  “My mother and grandma did not want him there.” 

He was an old man living alone, whose fault was to discover  his wife with another man in their  isolated farming home.

This avoidance reoccurred decades after the young couple was divorced and at their daughter’s wedding, her  father was not invited.

Unless this cycle of avoidance is broken in a  family, it might continue to cause animosity as the norm for future generations.

When grandchildren are withheld from grandparents due to animosity by the parents, the children are placed at a great disadvantage  and loses a critical part of their childhood  When the child becomes  an adult and discover that their grandparents was alive during their childhood years,  this might be a difficult question for the parent to answer, “Why did I not meet them” ?  This could  cause further animosity between  the children and parents.

In cases where grandchildren are withheld from grandparents , the senior has lived a full life and  knows from experience, after they passed on, the  consequences and guilt the children  might  feel  towards their parents.   Unfortunately,  there is no reversal to this scenario and if young parents don't understand this important criteria,  they might have to live with  animosity from their children for the rest of their lives.

They say, what goes around, comes around.  This seems to be true  when we fail to honour our mothers and fathers. As teenagers and young adults many of us  offended  our parents with things, that we are  sorry about later in life. 

In one case, a father and teenage son  was  repairing a fence, Sunday  after church in Guyana.  The father took the opportunity to talk to the son about the facts of life, but  being shallow-minded and arrogant, the son dropped the hammer in anger and went to play with his friends. 

Years later, also on a  Sunday afternoon, when the son was lying on his bunk on board ship as radio officer in the Pacific  ocean, he suddenly understood what the father was  trying to explain and he started to cry for the deep hurt he caused his father.  When he visited his father months later to seek forgiveness,  he repeated the incident and remembering that time, the father said, ‘ Son, you are growing up and will do well ‘.

In our young family life with children, long working hours and  huge bills, we might be too busy to think of the long term consequences of our actions, but the manner in which  our consciousness works for checks and balances to keep us sincere, it is important that we take time to understand our actions and non-action, regarding our relationships.  If this is not done  and animosity is allowed to fester in our lives, with the other person not around to seek forgiveness, as we get older, the consequences could result in  severe health issues.

As seniors, after our children become  adults and our lives become more stable, we are able to reflect more fully  about our own life  and our relationship with others, but it might be too late to heal relationships, when others might not be around anymore.

When we reflect as Patricia had done to settle our  relationship with God, our family and others,  little else matters.

Sometimes we have to live a full life and not until we become seniors, with a life of experiences,  that we are able to fully understand the importance of our relationship with others, especially our family and friends.

With Much Love.

Vince.

Your husband was right to not allow Mits to sing.

Anyway, I pray that you will be able to pick up the pieces and continue to be the source of strength for your kids. Hang in there. Can't promise you that it would be easy because I don't know that for sure. Losing my dad was not easy so I can imagine how more difficult it would be if it was my mom or spouse. We love you and pray for your recovery.

VB, thanks for sharing about the funeral.

Cham, take strength your strong minded husband.

Ksazma, I like that bit of humor about Mit!

Chami, it was quite obvious your husband was well known and loved. I haven't seen such a huge crowd at a funeral in a long time.  The ceremony was very well presented. I met Brave (as he was fondly addressed throughout the ceremony) and he was a true gentleman.

Stay strong for your 3 beautiful children.

Liz, check out the US National Cancer Institute for helpful facts.

After going through such a terrible ordeal, you deserve a vacation to a beautiful island (e.g. my avatar).  You'll come back refreshed and better able to cope.  Cheers and god's blessings to you and yours. 

Everyone deals with their grief in their own special way, there is no magic formula that one can pass on. They say time heals, maybe it does for some but for others it never does heal.

I cannot say with any certainty that I know what Chami is feeling, we all are different, but I do understand her pain.

It did not matter that her husband was sick and in the hospital, even the fact that he died, she was still able to see his body and in a sense she felt he was still there. But now that he is cremated she does not have that  physical body present anymore and that is where the hurting will start.

There are going to be endless moments where she will stare at his clothes, his pictures, every little thing that he touched will be a precious memento of him. (I know after my mother died I did all that, even now I look at things that has her handwriting)

When I was younger and adhering to a textbook approach to mourning, one of my co-workers told me that it is not that black and white because our emotions are not all the same. I only understood her comments when she many years later related to me how her brother was trying to get his mom out of the coffin and saying that she needs to be back home. People do all grieve in different ways.  

My pet parakeet Birdie died after breaking her wing on February 5 this year. She lived nearly five years in my apartment and was my special companion and source of joy. The night she died I cried bitterly. Seven months have passed, I think of her every day, and I still shed tears on account of some memories. I have one of her photos as my computer wallpaper. I have her photos in my smartphone too.

Now, if the death of a tiny pet can affect me like that, it's easy to imagine another person's grief and the need to look periodically at pictures and other paraphernalia of deceased loved ones.

Decades ago Queenie, a long time poster on GNI. whose father was an estate manager at Albion, gave our family a dog we named Collar.

One Saturday morning he decide to follow  my Mom to Port Mourant market [from Albion], where she sells mangoes from our farm and buy other vegetables for resale at the local market.

Surprising, exactly where our new house is  built at Belvedere, Collar got into a fight with other dogs on the roadway and was killed by  a car.

Forgetting her market day, our mother wrapped him in a sugar sack and brought him home. We all sat around  Collar and cried and eventually my elder bother dug a hole and buried him in our back yard.

For a long time we would sit near his grave and talked about how we like him  licking out faces.

Gil, I believe the death of our pets prepare us for other deaths.

Once when we try discarding our child's dead hamster in the garbage, they discovered our insensitivity, make us dig a hole in the frozen back yard and have a ceremony.     

glad that see that you are listening to some tunes Chami

oh that dog of yours will miss his master, How long you guys had him/her

leave dave's shoe or some sort of clothing close by for him to always sniff at. Animals are very sensitive more than we give them credit for.

 Oh cham I am shocked to hear of Dave's passing, my symphaties go out to you and family. I just got an email from rajik on this.

I just spent four days in Banff and now in Calgary to visit my son, Shannon is with me on the trip. We re back this weekend,perhaps.

Your GNI family are with you whether in person or in memory, I know you are a strong person,hang in there.

Oh rass bai I did not even realise that you did not know.

Amber, How are you Girl. Say Hi to Sabi for me.

Hi Chameli ... very sorry for your loss.

that is heartbreaking to imagine Chami, must have been really tough on him to know.

Chami please start writing down your thoughts and memories, it will be rewarding later in life.

or start recording them on a tape player. I know what you are feeling. I have re- read my mother's last year  daily diary almost 4 dozen times, understanding her pains and complaints

Don't mean to make light of this topic bai but Canadians still use tape players?

John Harricharan, a former Guyanese and friend of mine, is a motivational speaker and wrote some good books on Death and Dying after his wife died of cancer in her 30s. He's friends with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Deepak Chopra, etc. who wrote similar books.  You can type in his name on Amazon books, see which you like, and order. He's on Facebook also. Here's one I like: 

http://www.amazon.com/Morning-...rds=john+harricharan

yeah girl week one of many more to go. hang in there play with Wags