We all go through losses.
Life begins with a birth and ends with death for everyone. We can fill that dash between two dates on our tombstone in any way we want, but we can't get around the start and the finish.
Death comes for everyone, so you would think we should be used to it. It's just a natural part of life, yet it still hurts like nothing else in the world to lose a loved one.
I'm sorry, this column is personal, but at the same time I felt that the theme of death is universal. Losing someone we love is something that virtually all of us go through at some point, so I thought I'd share my sorrow. Besides, the man I'm crying for these days was a great member of the community, who touched many lives.
Richard Asbenlieder, one of the very first people I met in Estevan, someone who became a dear friend and felt like a real member of the family not only to me, but I bet to many people here, came to the end of his dash.
Last week I lost a very dear friend, a caring neighbour, a beautiful soul and just a great human being all around. And I know that void feels 100 times bigger for his family, who lost a loving husband, brother, father, grandpa and even a great-grandpa, who always was there for all and everyone in the family.
Richard was the one who discovered the beauty of the Estevan area for me. He told me stories of people who used to live here and who shaped many things in and around the city. He told me stories and showed me places that are hidden from an eye of a passerby, and can be found only if you sincerely love the land that raised you and had been getting to know every inch of it on the back of a horse for years.
He told me stories of events and initiatives that were started and built here. The best stories I've heard dozens of times, but he always shared them with such joy that they never felt old.
You know how in my columns I sometimes talk about my "awesome neighbours"? There is just a handful of us in our corner, and Richard was a huge part of our neighbourhood family, always looking up to each other.
He was among the very few people that made Estevan feel like home by just showing it to me through his eyes. And if you've ever moved to a different country or even community, you'll know that to find such a guide is a stroke of rare luck.
A really good friend of my husband, Richard became my close friend and then a friend of my friends. His easy and cheerful character could get him across borders and language barriers, as he's become virtual friends even with my family in the old country. Kind and warm, Richard also was funny and sometimes mischievous, always finding new projects and new troubles. He was a hard worker who'd dedicated decades to the mines and always had been busy working on something.
He was one of those rare and unique people that bring light into anything they do, any room they enter and any relationships they make.
My imagination sometimes painted Richard as the old man from The Most Beautiful Heart fable. He'd give pieces of his heart to people he was surrounded by and came across and had pieces of their hearts in return to stitch up his own, making it more and more beautiful.
Now he is gone, and I can feel that hole in my heart. And I know many other people feel this void too.
I don't think we can ever be ready for a death of a loved one. It hurts. Sometimes even physically. But life always continues, and we need to cope with the loss. We need to let ourselves feel that pain, feel all the emotions that come with the loss and live through it. It takes time and patience. And it's also very different for each one of us.
We need to acknowledge the feelings, be it sadness, anger, dudgeon, sorrow, loneliness or anything else. Even if we don't like some of them, we need to accept them and let ourselves cry.
We are social animals, and when we hurt we also need others around, we need support, and we need to share our memories and feelings with others.
We also need to stay active, do something and keep going with life. (Being young, I've never understood why people worry so much about funerals. The person is gone, it doesn't matter, I thought. But when my grandpa passed away after 52 years in marriage, if not for all the rush around funeral and cemetery arrangements, and all the friends and family participating in a lot of it, I don't think grandma would have made it through that time.)
And then the time will start doing its magic.
Even though it hurts, I know I have to say goodbye, but it's more so a thank you that you were in my life.
