2016 has been brutal. A few of the widely reported celebrity passings have hit me rather hard, but even more difficult are the personal losses of family and friends. It began in January with the loss of our good friend Steve, who introduced me to Marv more than two decades ago. But other friends and family members followed. And today I learned the dear man who welcomed me into his extended family when his daughter married my brother began a new journey. It’s so hard to process these deaths with all of the other chaos whirling around this world.
This Sunday, I attended a Celebration of Life for my former colleague, Doug Jones. Doug was a passionate and gregarious archaeologist and part of my first SHPO family at Iowa’s State Historic Preservation Office. His passing was unexpected, and the Celebration helped so many of us to share and better understand how he touched lives throughout the state (and nation) in his short time on this earth.
The opening prayer for the Celebration was given by Lance Foster, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska and a friend of Doug’s since college. Spoken in Ioway and translated to English, a portion of the prayer struck me Sunday and hit home again today when I reread it after learning of Preston’s passing:
Jegi hinjíwi, Doug Jones náhje hitewi hinhíjewi ke.
Here we have arrived, Doug Jones in our hearts we carry him.
Lance clarified that to “carry” someone in your heart is how the Ioway say you “remember” them. Although I cannot speak to the meaning behind the original Ioway phrasing, I can tell you that the word “carry” impacted my appreciation for Doug’s Celebration and it impacts my grief today.
Carrying someone in your heart means so much more to me than simply remembering them. It also feels like so much more than simply “holding” someone in your heart after they have gone. Carrying implies active support and movement of that someone within your heart and your life. It implies a burden: the weight carried as you remember all they were or could have been. In a sense, carrying someone in your heart also suggests a propulsion of their spirit within you: they become part of a driving force as your life moves forward without them on this earth, influencing your direction and actions.
So, in honor of Steve and Preston and Doug, and my Uncle Mike and our friend Emmett and my younger self’s second mom Sallie, and yes even Bowie and Prince and everyone else we have lost this year, whether famous or family or friend, know that we will remember and carry you in our hearts. And I for one will appreciate all that carrying you in my heart brings with it.