ST42 ... Ojibway Funeral

Diego, Travels Across the Great Waters

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To Arleta and Brian, (Saturday April 15, i heard of Diego's passing …. on Thiago’s, my sons birthday)

I once experienced an Ojibway funeral on a reserve with Vern Harper (Urban Elder). The teaching went on for an hour directed at the deceased. Basically: the deceased has four days to pass on across over the great waters to the other side. Their days are our nights. Diego's first day is tonight.

They put four clumps of tobacco between his fingers. They would talk to the deceased every night (his day) to help him to continue on the path towards the great waters. The first night can be the hardest because of all of his loved ones that can be in tears and it makes it so hard for him to leave them behind. But he must. There is no returning. That is so very hard when there are so many tears missing and mourning him. 

There can be terrible things along the path to make him want to turn around. The first night he may face a pack of wild dogs incredibly vicious. At that moment he must take one of the clumps of tobacco and offer it to the great mystery for help. The dogs will subside and he can now continue on his journey.

Each day our night, as he continues towards the great waters there will be some drastic issue to make him want to turn around and go back but he can't; that will remind him once again to take another clump of tobacco and offer it to the Great Mystery. This will allow him fearlessly to continue on. The fourth day, our fourth night he will offer the last clump of tobacco and be swept across the great waters on to the other side, the mystery, the way.

I hope this may help. I have no pipe tonight to pray, but i will try to talk to Diego with out medicines. I will be strong for him, for you, Arleta and Brian.

Arleta and Diego a year ago….

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Sunday the 16th of April 2023 heading back to Canada….
I'm at the airport waiting in a daze. Nothing seems real. I can feel the pain thru the air. Nothing is so hard than this, a mother loosing a child. I try to be, just be, but pure pain is always there. At every glance across space there are tears waiting so close inside. It doesn't seem right. Diego was just a kid, just moving into manhood. He was healthy and the best young man i had ever known. Polite, smart, sincere, very good looking and energetic, a pleasure to be around. He had respect for others and elders as i had rarely experienced. He would ask questions and then listen intently. I can't believe it is true. I don't trust life. It is cruel. There must be some way to accept these tragedies with love. There must be, without dragging along a scripture of beliefs to recall, remember, follow to absorb the tears drowning, numbing ones heart. People want to believe there is a reasonable purpose to all this…nonsense. All belief is make belief..what ever gets you thru the night, we're all stranded doing our best to accept it.
It all happened so quick. In a two week span, diagnosed with leukemia just a few days back, decisions concerning chemo, two days in a coma and gone.

Kachi, Brian, Diego, Arleta….Spring 2022 on Brian’s land, SMA Mexico

Last night was Diegos first day travelling to the other side. I watched the sun sink into the horizon with out taking my eyes off of its deep yellow orange soul until it sank into the darkness beyond the horizon and was gone. I felt Diego ending, moving into unknown territory, the mystery of it all.

I awoke and did three ceremonies thru-out the night. I talked to him. Told him what i knew. That he was in a coma when he passed. That he may be feeling disoriented, confused, in a nite-mare, a dream. I told him that all life dies, passes on. There is no set time, some go early, some late. I talked from the heart. I didn't paint any illusions. I was gentle, hurt but stern with a sincere heart-felt tongue. I continued to express how we will miss him, especially Arleta, his dear mother and Brian, his acting father and all his close friends, but we have to let him go as he has to let us go and keep walking towards the great waters. I told him that some moments might get so hard, unbearable, that he will just want so bad to turn around, go back home….but he can't, he has to keep going. All of us will have to do the same sooner or later and that trillions and trillions before us had to do the same. It is the way of the earth and all of its creations, we can't do anything other than to continue on walking, moving thru time to where time dies, eternity.

I told him that when times get so hard and when he is so frightened, to take another clump of tobacco from between his fingers or just hold his hand to the sky with eyes closed and offer a deep sincerity to the great mystery and ask for help. Things will change and you will be strong to keep walking. We love you, your mother loves you so much but you have to keep walking.

We love you, care for you with tears so heavy but we have to let you go also, for you, for us, this is the way.

I talked to him three times thru the night. The last time something changed. A new deeper directed energy took place.

I told him that this is the way it has to be. We all have to walk to the great waters. Be strong. A new love entered me, a calm sacred space came over me. I felt he understood that this was not just a dream and accepted this fate in a new light and that emanated thru out me.

As in all life, things come and go. He has a few more days to struggle with deaths way. I told him that he is experiencing what we have not yet experienced and that it is the way, it is good, just go with the light, the love. 

Brian, Diego, Arleta and friends….ceremony for Arleta’s mother whom passed away last year

Next Day
I am crying now for Arleta….sitting here at the Queretaro airport waiting for my flights back to BC Canada….. To let go is more than one can bare. Life is so damn hard sometimes.

If i can. Tonight, i will talk again to help as best i can for his dear soul.

The pain comes in waves, hits you when you least expect it. You just have to go with it. For me, it brings up my daughter Sierra, my brother Bill, with whom had died far too young. Today with a heavy heart i see so many surrounding me that i would give away in a heart beat, if i could, replace them for Diego. Life isn't that way.

Sasha and i cried together over the internet last night. She says this death hit her more than any other in her life. She got to know him special and it is the youth that hurts so bad. So hard to find a reason amidst this universe that makes sense. It just doesn't. I have struggled my whole life attempting to accept my brother and my daughters early leaving….there just isn't any truth to find…..you just carry on, do the best you can, become soft, caring, kinder, gentler. It can be harder some days than others. You just learn to turn it off to survive, to carry on living, to see the beauty that surrounds us. We do the best we can with what we feel is right. 

Diego, Arleta - months ago

Two days ahead:
Last night was the third night and third day for Diego according to these Ojibway teachings. I am now home in BC. I did a ceremony, smoked the pipe, talked, prayed. I awoke in the middle of the night, smudged and focused. I felt the presence of many prayers streaming across the space inside and outside my being. Diego is being taken care of, protected and instructed to walk on.

The day unfolds with crippled words attempting to express the pain that feels too unbearable to accept, too meaningless in moments of despair, then a wave of miraculous love covers me. I think and feel Arleta, her struggle, her pain, her spirit so intense with love. I breathe deep. 

I know there are moments when one realizes that the right thing to do is to carry on for life, for Diego, for the way, for the precious love that finds its way thru everything…….but moments sometimes tear this understanding to shreds and tears come flowing to caress the abyss surrounding……we walk on.

The night was heavy in moments, i talked in my sleep in languages i don't know. I was awake, i was dreaming, i was in and out of existence, my tongue spoke foreign indigenous sounds, i could feel the meanings deep within my heart, anguish, torment, surrendered acceptance, light. I got up and went to the kitchen. I had the medicines, feathers, pipe waiting. I talked to the spirits, real and unreal, with a knowing beyond belief. I talked to Diego. I said goodbye with a heavy light heart. I felt his presence fade into the night. I knew i had to carry on. That is what you do with life, you live, you let go, you keep walking.

Sasha, Arleta and her mother whom passed away last year

A Break in Time:
I took a long break from this writing. A week to gather my wavering self. I am back in the land of forests and clear streams, BC Canada. There is so much more that could be written of all this but i will stop here. Realities unfold too deep, too difficult to accept at times. Though time heals, time behaves in tune to the mind, time tears one apart, time mends.

Life is hard, life is beautiful. I/we will remember Diego like an angel with his honest spirit ways, his nature, his integrity, his love. For all whom has gone before us, our ancestors, all life from the smallest to the largest, the spirits of beyond time, the known and the unknown, the great mystery. We do our best. We walk on.

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Pictures that Diego took last year with my camera, at a ceremony for Arleta’s Mother whom had just passed away. He obviously had an artistic eye, his framing is perfect.

Arleta, mother, beautiful person, actress, medicine woman and friend ... photo by Diego

Myself with Arleta as she spoke about her mother … photo by Diego

A Real Friend, Brian and Myself ... photo by Diego

Brian … photo by Diego

Myself - Patrick … photo by Diego

Diego’s Mother Arleta … photo by Diego

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