This week we said goodbye to Gerald. A man that lived in foster care and then institutions from the age of 2. He moved to Haliburton to live with Community Living in 1986. He was a man about town, he loved the police force, fire service, any work crew activity and a special affinity for riding the back of the garbage truck. Community members invited him to take part in things and more than once when he lived independently and was missing he was riding along with the police, so easy to find once the agency contacted them. At his celebration there were so many stories describing his life connected to the fabric of the community. In one story he was attending to a tourist family that had a flat tire, with his badges and pens and official looking hat they were not sure what role he had, but had decided that he had an official capacity in the village. When a community member stopped, they explained that Gerald was in fact just a villager with an interest, the family member asked about his pager. The answer was “oh that doesn’t work” at which time it went off and Gerald quickly moved on. Minutes later being seen by the party on the side of the road riding along in the fire truck. Gerald was connected and was able to do what he loved because people in Haliburton took the time to get to know what he loved and accepted his gifts. How many of us are carrying pagers? Carrying connections to different roles, carrying guilts and troubles, carrying obligations. Do our pagers work? Work for us? Are these connections and roles a place to use our gifts, are our quirky talents and interests being valued, are we missed when we are not answering the call. The legacy of Gerald’s Haliburton is that he added almost nothing in labour or problem solving, he was valued for his presence, his smile and what having him ride along added just in his presence. Check your pager, check your to do list, who and what on there just makes you smile and just needs you along to make everyone more engaged and smiling. Sure we all have a long bunch of numbers competing for our attention, but lets check in to make sure we have a few “ride alongs” in there where we can just be, just share, just smile, and where the to do list type people have trouble finding us. These are the true connections, the true Gerald moments.
UltimateInclusion.com 
Gerald will be missed but it is obvious that he left his imprint on a local community. As someone who sometimes has to lead a Celebration of Life for someone I do not know, the best compliment i can receive is from people who say that it was like I knew the person or you captured their essence while they were alive and how they connected with others. And my response is always that people shared their heartfelt memories with me. I am just the conduit so that people are moved to share how that person interacted with them. I can never say enough about how important it is to share the life stories of not only yourself but of others.
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