DEDICATED TO AN OLD FRIEND
In my first year, I had a friend named Jarrod. He and I ate our meals together each and every day in the dining hall. We’d often debate politics and would disagree on most things. But despite the constant disagreement and shitty food, he was my friend.
At the end of our first year, I helped Jarrod bring down his bags from his Stanton dorm room. We both waved goodbye as he got into a cab.
A couple weeks later when moving his things into a storage locker, Jarrod had trouble breathing. He went to the University’s walk-in clinic and was immediately told to go to the hospital — that’s how he found out he had cancer.
The next time I saw Jarrod was only a month after I had seen him prior. A small group of us visited him in the hospital; he looked completely different from how he was a month prior. My friend was sick and it felt like there was nothing I could do.
But we kept our hopes high and a couple months later, he went into remission and it seemed like things were getting better.
The morning that I was getting ready to board a train to start my second-year, I received a call. The cancer had come back. Jarrod passed away.
After a month, a friend and I were tasked with emptying out Jarrod’s storage locker. We sorted through each item to determine what should be sent back to his family, what should be thrown away and what we should keep. There is nothing more uncomfortable than sorting through the belongings of a passed friend.
I try to have a chat with Jarrod’s mother at least once a year and let her know that we are still thinking about him in Ottawa.
Nothing can prepare you for a death, especially the death of a young friend. Nobody hands you a manual on how to process the grief. For years, I barely spoke of what happened and tried my best to not think about the loss. And that was the problem; my friends and I never spoke much of Jarrod’s death. I can count on one hand the amount of times we talked about it. I don’t blame any of us for not talking about it, we just didn’t know how.
Jarrod is not the only student who will never live to see his graduation day. Nor am I the only person to have to deal with the grief left behind. As young people we don’t like to think about death, particularly the death of one another. But that means when it happens to us, we don’t know how to react. Talking about your grief with someone who hasn’t experienced it is like trying to explain colour to someone who is blind.
If I had a time machine, I’d go back to that first year after losing Jarrod and talk to my friends about the grief; so I wouldn’t have to go through it alone. Unfortunately, I have since drifted away from most of those friends as often happens as time passes.
But unfortunately, I have no time machine. But there will be more students at the U of O who lose their “Jarrod” and those students deserve to be able to have the proper resources to help them grieve if they don’t want to go through it alone.
The University of Ottawa, but more specifically the University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU) needs to have a Grief & Memorial Centre for many reasons; here are the top two.
Reason #1: Student’s experiencing grief deserve a physical place, as well as an opportunity to create a community of others who are grieving. Not everyone needs a community to process grief; but many do.
Reason #2: Many of us in the U of O community have big dreams of what we want to do with our lives. Some of us may be remembered for the fantastic things we will accomplish. Jarrod had big dreams, he was considering running in the 2019 Federal Election. His cancer diagnosis made that unlikely and his death made it impossible. He does not deserve to be forgotten. Having a physical space on campus to remember these people for their dreams and the futures they’d imagined could be paramount to some people’s grieving processes.
I am still not over my grief and it’s been over four years. I don’t think I’ll ever be fully “over it”, nor do I want to be. I’m still learning how to live with my grief. I’m sure I’m not the only one still learning; why not learn together? I know this is a heavy topic. But it’s a conversation that we need to have because no griever deserves to be alone if they do not want to be.
I didn’t want to grieve alone, but I didn’t think I had a choice. People deserve to know they have a choice.
