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Celebrating Silas

1/28/2016

 
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Silas would have entered Kindergarten this year and turned six on March 16th. But five years ago he died just a week after his first birthday. "Every parent's worst nightmare," his mother Jodie Brauer says. He died in the night, "no calls for help, no warning signs, and no explanation."

About six months later, struggling under a tsunami of grief, Jodie decided to work towards running 12 miles, one mile for each month of Silas' life. What began as a private focus to mark Silas' first birthday, shared with a small group of family and friends, is now the Celebrate Silas 5K, an annual run/walk benefitting the Dougy Center.

After Jodie began volunteering at The Dougy Center, she says, " I recognized that my grief was not the only thing out there. Many, many other people are grieving too and sharing my grief with others is therapeutic for me."  She realized that the annual run could be "an opportunity for other folks to share their grief too". And so last year she featured a “We Remember” board, created by Silas' brother Felix, and called names of those being remembered.

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"It was definitely a somber few minutes and some folks were openly crying," she says, adding, "That is okay though. There is nothing wrong with crying in my opinion. One of my personal goals in this event is to help bring grief out into the open. I want to talk about Silas, even when it makes me sad."

Once participants took off running and walking, it "shifted the energy of the group back into the celebratory," Jodie says. "There is something about exercising together as a group that is uplifting."

Jodie's journey as an event organizer has been closely intertwined with her own journey of mourning. Since the beginning, the route has included a pause mid-event to tour the Crystal Spring Rhododendron Garden where there's a memorial bench for Silas. ("We wanted to have a public place to go and remember him and to have his name written out in the world. To tell the world that he was here," she says.) But that first year "I was hyperventilating while at the garden and could hardly look at the bench. Now, I really enjoy sitting on the bench at the event and chatting with folks about it."

In the third year, when she first opened the event to the public, Jodie invited the team from Fire Station 9 who had responded the morning that Silas died. They offered to bring the fire truck and let folks tour it. It sounded like a great idea until they pulled up at the site. "Seeing the fire fighters in uniform brought me right back to the morning Silas died," she says. "I started crying and shaking. They all felt so bad for me and offered lots of hugs. Luckily, I was able to pull it together."

That same year she realized that sticking to her own 12 mile run while public participants did a shorter route created more than a literal distance between her and the others. She says, "I welcomed people at the beginning, but most folks were long gone by the time I was back at the park. This combined with typical March weather and the singing of happy birthday to a dead baby made it less than celebratory. I decided to switch things up if we were to do it again."

That led to the ceremonial elements she's incorporated, and a unified route accessible to all. This year Jodie will use name tags to encourage participants to share the name of those they're remembering to encourage folks to talk and share stories about their loved ones. "I'm envisioning people coming up to you," she tells me, "seeing your name tag and asking, 'Will you share a story about Marcy with me?' I love to talk about Silas and don't get many opportunities. I hope folks will find this meaningful and that it will help build community within the group."

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Jodie still marks Silas' birthday with her own 12 mile run, followed by cake and videos of Silas. Separating her personal birthday run from the day of the public Celebrate Silas 5k has made it easier for her.  

I asked Jodie how she balances celebration and bereavement. "The short answer," she says, "is that I combine them. I live with the magnitude of Silas' loss everyday. I feel like I balance bereavement with everything that I do. When I was new to grief, I was really concerned about forgetting Silas. Me forgetting, other people forgetting. I think most folks want the opportunity to remember and talk about their loved ones. Especially this year, I hope that Celebrate Silas will be an opportunity to celebrate/talk about/remember our loved ones and that this helps honor our grief. Someone once told me that the magnitude of my grief was a testament of my love for Silas. I believe this to be true. I celebrate my love, my grief, and my memories because it is all that I have left."

Check out the photos and participant feedback below and please consider joining me and Amber in supporting Celebrate Silas 2016 on Sunday, March 6, 2016. More info here. To hear Jodie discuss anniversaries and birthdays in greater detail, listen to this Dougy Center's podcast.

"Not everyone has the wherewithal to create such a public, meaningful tribute to their precious loved one. As a fellow bereaved mother, I love the opportunity that Celebrate Silas provides to remember and honor my own son. The course is beautiful and tranquil. Thank you Jodie!" Jami Keene

“It was a really lovely event- as always. It's cool how it's grown, and I'm sure will grow every year. It will never make up for Silas' death, but it does help celebrate his life and the lives of others. Thanks for all that you put into it. I plan to be there every year!” Sara Ohgushi


“Congratulations, Jodie! We were honored to have the opportunity to participate again this year in what is such a wonderful event. The walk/run is so aptly named, because it really does feel like a celebration. Such an awesome sense of community and camaraderie is created when friends and strangers get together for a shared goal. What an amazing way to kick off the week!” Sue Johnson

The Peace Militia

1/23/2016

 
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The news is full of the daily outrages committed by the armed militia occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in remote southeastern Oregon. What it doesn't report is the hard work taking place behind the scenes among those who seek real solutions to the dwindling opportunities and dismantled civic infrastructure experienced by rural communities.
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That's the work of the Rural Organizing Project, founded by my dear friend Marcy Westerling. While Marcy is no longer living, her work carries on.

When Marcy's husband Mike was in Burns to bear witness to the armed occupation, he noticed the local cancer support group had an upcoming event. Seeing a way to express solidarity with this community under siege (and pay homage to the organizing Marcy did among others with cancer), he reached out to the coordinator who welcomed the broader connection.

After I helped Mike get the word out through Marcy's blog, he heard back from his contact in Burns:
“Words cannot express how appreciative our community is for your support. Just the mere mention of your concern brought many of my coworkers, cancer survivors, and community members to tears (and goose bumps)! Someone mentioned, 'It’s like they’re the Peace Militia.'"

I wrote a note and sent a check this week and invite you to do the same. Details are in Mike's post, reprinted below.

My late wife Marcy liked to describe herself as a ‘kick-ass community organizer’. We met doing the work of speaking up for social justice and progressive values in rural Oregon, where Marcy founded the Rural Organizing Project. Here’s how I would compare us: If I was a pretty good basketball player in neighborhood pick-up games, Marcy was an NBA first-round-draft pick.

Lately, rural Oregon has been in the national and international news as armed militia men have occupied theMalheur Wildlife Refuge near the SE Oregon town of Burns. Burns is a wonderful small rural community, which Marcy visited several times for the ROP. The Refuge is incredible – think all the cowboy film scenery you’ve ever seen, only 10x better.

I knew Marcy was not going to forgive me if I didn’t get involved, so I’ve been working with her old Rural Organizing Project colleagues to witness events and help people see beyond the divisive shock that the armed takeover has dealt to the community and to the whole state. As the occupation drags on, we are learning that the bonds of community are being stretched to the breaking point.

The people of Oregon, and the whole USA, owe something to the people of Harney County and Burns. They have persevered despite some tragic and unjust events, and a lot of just plain hard times. From the violent dispossession of the Paiute people, to the dust bowl, to the collapse of the rural economy in the last three decades, the people of the area have managed to come together and maintain and manage a treasure in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

In a small effort to ‘pay it forward’, we are urging our friends to support the upcoming Feb 6th Sip for the Cure Masquerade Tea Party in Burns, a fund raiser for CAN Cancer – Communities Assisting Neighbors with Cancer.
This non-profit helps cancer patients with financial assistance for the many expenses that having a diagnosis imposes, from travel, to cozy blankets for chemo sessions. All the money stays in the community.

Tickets are $8.00. Write a check to CAN Cancer (there is no on-line portal). Address it to CAN Cancer, Harney District Hospital, 557 W Washington, Burns OR 97220.

Since you must use the postal service  anyway, please take the time to include a Thank You card to the people of Burns, Oregon to let them know we stand with them in this hard time.

Marcy never missed a chance to organize. She spent the last three years of her life organizing her fellow ovarian cancer sisters through this incredible blog, Livingly Dying. She is, no doubt, urging us on to pick up the baton and run with it.

Thank you for your support,
​Mike Edera

If God is Love...

1/13/2016

 
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Go visit Lynda Martin-McCormick at her home on the slopes of Portland’s Mount Tabor and you’ll be greeted by the words and essence of her beloved husband David. In a nook of her front stoop hangs a gorgeously calligraphed plaque that reads, “If God is Love Then Love is God”.

“The idea of creating a piece of calligraphy with this saying came to me as a visual image a few months after I had bought a house here in Portland,” Lynda says. “I think the quote is David's own epiphany. It is very much his spirit: logical (if A=B, then B=A), but also soaring, spiritual, and simple. He often went right to the heart of a matter.”

I first met Lynda when she was seeking support in anticipation of David’s death. Three thousand miles from their home in Washington, DC, he was to die in their Airbnb, a lovely garden apartment near OHSU where he’d come for treatment of the cancer he’d lived with for a number of years. They had family here, including their daughter and son-in-law with their newborn baby, Lynda and David’s first grandchild. Lynda wanted to keep David’s body at home for 24 hours after his death. Their story is told in the 5-minute mini-documentary DIY Death.

PictureDavid with 1-day-old Malcolm
Lynda contacted a professional calligrapher, a friend of her sister-in-law and her partner who had met David during a visit to Portland. Having her use a lettering style developed by a Welsh calligrapher was a happy surprise since David's family has Welsh roots. Lynda says, “It feels like a cherry on top.”

As to how it turned out: “The end result was more beautiful that I had imagined.” But the effect was more than aesthetic – the piece has great powers of evocation.

“Having it on wood was also not in the original picture, but so very David,” Lynda says. “He loved to make things out of wood. He made the bed we slept in together, and now I sleep in alone. He made the desk that I work on. At our old house it was a double desk; we worked side by side. Now it's just for one. The first thing he did when we began to be serious about one another was to build a table: in the landing of the group house where he lived, using two wooden horses to brace the table, cutting the wood with a hand-held power saw and inlaying a strip of mahogany with a wobbly router. That's how I knew he was courting me. He made bookshelves and an end table for my mother, a cabinet for our son; one of the last projects was a set of kitchen benches for our daughter Lindsay and her husband Eric. So having the calligraphy on wood is very meaningful.” 

More than art, more than memory, the piece has another purpose. Lynda explains: “The most important part for me is for other people to see the calligraphy. I wanted it to declare for me that David lived; that I loved him; and that he is in this house and always remembered.

Picture"I have made a place for David, and told the world something important about him."
​“I have David's ashes in the house, but no one can tell what they are. They just see  a lovely hand-thrown jar. Now there is a public spot for David here, where I live. I have made a place for David, and told the world - the world that comes to my front door - something important about him. This gives me great ease. I feel more congruent. I used to feel that there was a rupture; life without David had been torn from life with David. Now it's all one piece, I am all one piece.  When grief flows, I don't feel lonely.”

I had the honor of serving as a sounding board for Lynda as she considered the installation of the calligraphed plaque. It was placed in a simple family ceremony just before Christmas. She says, “David’s sister and her partner brought little statuettes of a skier and a bicycle, both very much part of David's identity. Our daughter Lindsay and son-in-law Eric added a sprig of flowering rosemary. Our son Daniel put up the mounts for the plaque. There is a pine cone placed below for each member of the family. The installation is truly comforting.”


In the few weeks since then, no visitor has mentioned it. “I would have thought that someone would say ‘that's beautiful’ or ‘how interesting,” Lynda says. “But not so far. I wonder about that. But I love coming to the front porch and seeing it. For me, the calligraphy is tremendously healing.

PictureLynda with Malcolm
Lynda’s mother died seven weeks before David, in Washington, DC, while David was in the hospital here in Portland. Lynda plans to honor the flow of grief and the continuity of connection with her mother by installing a Little Library in the front yard, dedicated to her.

“My mother loved books and she loved children reading books. I imagine a painted memorial on it: 
To Pauline Martin, who lived to be 101 and always loved a good story,” Lynda says. "I'm thinking of splashing a little Jack Daniels over it as part of the inaugural ceremony. Maybe some milk and cookies for kids in the neighborhood. My mother wasn't a big drinker at all, but in her senility (in the nursing home) she used to ask for a coke 'with a stick in it,' meaning some bourbon. Makes me smile.

“I just want people here around me, my friends and neighbors, to know who I came from, and to know something about these two people I loved who are gone.”   ​



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