December 16, 2004
Jaidan was a good and a lovely man. He could not see that he was good and lovely because he found little loveliness in this world. His frequent depression, despair, and thoughts of suicide kept him from himself. The goodness, the kindness that he sought were right before him, but because of his pain, he could not see himself. Those of us who knew him, who have come to honour him today, knew the kindness and the compassion which he had for others, but which he could not give to himself.
Thirty months ago, after my wife had died, and after our friends and relatives who had come to her funeral had had to go back to
their own lives, and I was left alone, Jaidan asked if I would mind --- if I would mind that he would spend the night at our house, because he missed her, missed my wife. As if I would mind. He spent the week, a week I can not quite remember, taking care of what he could, taking care that I was not alone, taking care of my pain, and not his own.
Thank you, my friend.
Jaidan came into my life about ten years ago. I was bicycling, after school, through downtown Vernon, and noticed in my rearview mirror a bicycle, with almost as much stuff stuck to it as was stuck to my own, a bicycle and a rider apparently following me through the downtown. After a few more blocks, I pulled over and let the bike and the rider catch up. The rider, of course, turned out to be Jaidan and the beast he was riding was a contraption of parts he had stuck together from pieces of various ten-speed bikes, a contraption he called `Dream,' though it looked to me more like a nightmare. He said he had seen me, several times before, and thought he should meet anyone who could ride a machine almost as encrusted as his own. After a few moments, I explained that I would continue to ride for about another thirty kilometers, out to Lake Okanagan and then back, up and into the Coldstream, for nearly another two hours. I was amazed and delighted when he asked if I would mind -- mind if he joined me just for the ride. Hard to believe I had met someone as crazy as I about bikes and long distance rides.
That evening was the beginning of thousands of kilometers he and I would spend together on our bikes. In the summers, for several years, we would cycle over one-hundred kilometers a day, three days a week, come heat, which he hated, or rain, which was the only way we ever washed our bikes, one of a collection of jokes which we assembled around ourselves and our adventures. Even in the winters, Jaidan would show up after school and he and I would head out to the lake, often into snowstorms, while I trailed behind the stresses of school and he found something of the companionship he wanted and needed.
Thank you Jaidan. The roads are already lonely without you.
I could tell you hours of adventures he and I shared together. But, with his dying, his family and I have discovered lots of you who have your own stories, stories we had never heard. Jaidan, sitting down to eat an entire pie, all by himself, and then rubbing his belly with delight: "That was good!" Jaidan fixing people's computers, walking people's dogs, often taking time out of his own life just to be with people he knew needed to spend time with someone else. Jaidan, looking after people's houses while they were away; Jaidan finding things to fix or ways to make things easier for the people whom he had come to know. And for all his caring and fixing, I know we too were able to care for him, though perhaps not able to do much fixing.
Jaidan, my friend and my companion, you can not ride with me, can not take care of your friends' houses and gadgets, gadgets which you loved almost as much as you loved your bike. You can not come by and talk, and eat, and be with me. However, you are not gone. We who are gathered here today remember you, mourn for losing you, and at the same time chuckle over our experiences with you, see you in the things you have done for us, and feel honoured to have been your family and friends.
Thanks, Jaidan. I'll see you yet again, somewhere, some road, some interesting situation which both of us can share again.
John Hanson |
