This is probably one of the hardest things I have ever
wrote, and yet the easiest. Earlier this
week I had lost one of my cousins, one of my closest cousins, so close he was
like an older brother. The hardest thing to write about this is to figure out
how to begin it all. I could start off about his character, his exterior, his
looks, how he carried himself, but that would not do him justice. I could talk
about the hardships he has endured, I could talk about the joy he has brought,
but that would not suffice. So, instead I will start with it all, start from
the earliest memories I have of him. Start from the beginning of my
consciousness, from when I realized that he existed. I do possess some memories
as an infant, but the funny thing about that is that most of them are just
feelings, and some blotches of images, never really a clear moment of
interaction, just sort of still moment that give an impression of the time.
With that being said, my first memory of him was a smile.
While being raised, I often visited my grandparents’ home,
and he was adopted to our grandparents, which happens in Inuit culture, even
today a lot of families still practice this tradition. It’s usually the eldest
child that is adopted to the grandparents, but his biological brother, and
sister were also adopted by my grandparents for whatever reason it may be; I was
never really told as to why that was, nor have I asked. There may have been
many complex reasons for this, it may have been some part of a tradition that
was lost or I was never told about, but the reasons aren’t all that important.
In regards to my cousin being adopted by my grandparents I should have
considered him uncle, but we were so close in age, that I guess we never really
considered it. He was my cousin, and that was it. But then again I was a strange child; I didn’t
call my mother ‘mom’ until I was about seven, or eight. I would call her Oonga, and I didn’t think it
was anyway weird. I figured that my mother actually had a name, and all other
mothers didn’t and were just called ‘Mom’ and should be referred to as ‘enter kid’s(kids’)
name(s)’ Mom. I also knew my older
sister was adopted to my eldest uncle and aunt, and would refer to her as my
sister, even though I was supposed to call her cousin. If you can follow that, then you’ve been in the
Arctic for some extended period of time, and a family tree, or diagram would
not be necessary to explain all this. If you could not follow this, then too
bad, make your own diagram. I’ve got no time for it, and I’m writing here
dammit! Straying from my point here, but I did need to try to explain some
things. I guess what I was actually saying was that in my perspective he was
always my cousin, and to my younger siblings, and younger cousins he was ‘Uncle’. I would spend almost every day with him; we’d
play, and watch TV, more specifically the CBC’s Disney movie specials, Hockey
Night in Canada, and especially Takuginai (it’s a northern
thing, kind of like a ‘Sesame Street’ for Norherners). TV wasn’t really something we’d watch all the
time, back then there were just three channels, and the only thing to watch was
usually soap operas, and Anne of Green Gables type shows (Road to Avonlea, did
anyone watch this show? I mean, ever sat down through a whole episode?) TV was usually just a specials only type
thing. Usually we’d end up going outside and finding sticks to play with, go
around to The Candy Store, pick-up some candy and possibly a new toy. A lot of
the time we did play with action figures as well. Latter on, we both amassed a
large collection and wound up turning my laundry room into a giant playroom
dedicated for the action figures. But I’m
getting a head of myself. There’s far more to that story. Of course when
speaking about close relationships with people, especially family, there were
bad times. He was older than me after all, and he did have his brother who was
closer in age with him. There were times I was excluded from play because I was
just too young, too small, or just not fast enough to keep up. That would happen a lot, but I did have Jimmy
around, and we’d usually be excluded together and quickly move on to something
else. Then my cousin Harry came along, we would also include him into our plots
and schemes, activities and other general foolishness that children get
themselves into.
There were never any shortages of
cousins to play with, but things do happen, and people do die at any age. Before
I was born there had been a couple of losses in the family, of children, more
specifically my only biological sisters, and ones that were not my half
siblings. It was a year later that I came onto the scene, my mother was
probably pregnant with me when one of my sisters past on, as the other before
her passed on while she would have been in my mother’s womb. I came around and it was still fresh in my
family’s minds, and I grew up being conscious of this from an early age. Just
before I was five I found my eldest sister in her room, motionless, and I was
sent up to give my sister a glass of juice to go down with her chicken
soup. She was sick, very sick, so sick
my mother pulled me out of kindergarten and brought me to the high school to pick
up my sister from the nurse’s office. We had no idea what was wrong with her;
they just figured she had stomach flu, or food poisoning or something like
that. The truth was that my sister, being a silly teenager, did not study for a
test she had that day and heard if you take enough pills you’d get sick. And to
avoid getting into trouble she made our cousin of the same age to not tell
anyone. This is what ignorance can bring; it can give birth to tragedy, and a
simple promise to not tell had cost my sister her life. My cousin could not be
blamed, she was young, and she had no idea of the implications that her
inaction to tell brought this event from just an excuse to miss some stupid
test, to a tragedy that left a family scarred. When I went up to hand my sister her juice,
she would not respond to me, and she didn’t eat her soup. I was four. When I
left food untouched on my plate I would get into trouble. I would be told to
eat my food. I would be told that if I did not eat my veggies there would be
consequences or something like that. With my sister leaving her food untouched,
I stomped down the stairs and yelled “Anna’s not eating her food! She wouldn’t
even take her juice!”
What happened next was something new to
me. My parents were worried, and had a look I had not seen before. They were
watching TV and were just relaxing after a hard day of work, and running around
to get my sister home. My dad said, “She’s probably just sleeping. I’ll go
check up on her.”
My mother looked at me and beckoned me
to come and get a kiss and sit on her lap. My father then shouts something, and
an ambulance was called, and all of a sudden paramedics came in and I wasn’t
allowed to look for reasons I didn’t know. My sister was on a stretcher, with
something on her face. Then time passed and we were up at the hospital, and in
a room I have never seen before, and I was wondering why I was going in there
with my mother, and why everyone was crying, and I heard it. The scream, and
earth shattering howl, something that would shake every fiber of being, nothing
else in the world could make this sound; nothing could be so sorrowful and
frightening at the same time. A howl, and moan, a scream and bellow. It comes
from deep in the soul, as if someone had just ripped a piece of it away and you
are crying for it to return. My sister passed on that night. I know what is to lose a sibling, as did my
cousin. His brother, Paul, committed suicide one night, I believe New Years, I
could be wrong, I would have been only six or seven. But nonetheless, we did
share that in our lives. Knowing that losing a cousin can be similar to losing
a brother, or sister.
Time passes, wounds scar over, and give
a semblance of healing, and things go on as normal as they can. Remember when I
said we would play with action figures and set up my laundry room as a play
room pretty much dedicated to it? Well, when Paul died, my cousin, Soudloo,
would come by and hang out, on some days. We’d play as brothers would, even
when he was technically too old to be playing with such toys. For those of you
who have younger siblings, let’s say a span of six to eight years younger, you
would placate to their desires to play with little Ninja Turtles, GI Joe’s and
Hotwheels. Even play hide and seek in small spaces. Anything to entertain your
little sibling. He would do that for me, and did that for me for years. As we grew
up we also would sit around the TV and watch really bad action movies, and
martial arts films. Every Monday and Thursday was WWF night. We’d sit with our
uncles and watch Wrestlemania, and King of the Ring and cheer on Bret the
Hitman Heart, Hulk Hogan, Macho-Man Randy Savage, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and the
Ultimate Warrior. Seeing as I was so much younger, and smaller, he would body
slam Jimmy, and me onto a soft bouncy bed, while we took turns playing referee. We would take toy guns and pretend to be
Rambo fighting ninjas, or Arnold Schwarzenegger blowing up some army. We would also go outside and play sports.
Baseball, soccer, and hockey were our favorites. He even taught me how to shoot
a slap-shot, and after The Mighty Ducks movie came out, he showed me a
knuckle-puck.
Aside from being the older brother I never had, he was also
very talented in the arts. And I mean talented. He picked up a keyboard and
played ‘What if God Was One of Us?’ like it was nothing. He figured it out in
no time. Then he played ‘Amazing Grace’ from memory alone. He’d also play parts
of classical songs here and there, and he would do it flawlessly. He had very
little interest to play in a band, or pursue music as a lively-hood, and if he
had any real interest in it he never let on that he did. He was also an amazing
artist. He would draw something awesome, and wonderful without any prior
training. He would just do it for fun, a talent some people would kill to have
and he did not do it to pursue any form of monetary achievement. He did not do
it to become famous; he just drew for the fun of drawing. He was also a good
puppeteer. That show we used to watch together, Takuginai,
he ended up as a puppeteer for that show. When I was younger, and we were out
camping, he’d take a sock, a skin, or make something and use it as a puppet to
keep us kids entertained while it rained, or if it was too windy to play
outside, or so said grandma, because it’s never really too windy to play. Some would say he wasted his talents, but
really, he would put joy into the hearts of his younger cousins, his nieces and
nephews. His talents would amaze me, they would entertain me, and they would
inspire so much more than anyone would give credit for. Even this little piece has
been inspired, along with just about everything I have written in my life, by
his talents. Who knows how many stories, essays, diatribes, and quips I have
written, but in a sense they all stem from that little light he had ignited in
me to pursue some art-form.
There was a time when we did spread
apart, a lot of that had to deal with geography, and the age difference. When I
was fourteen, my step-father had brought my little brother, and I down to
Ottawa to live. My little brother was actually adopted; he was Soudloo’s
biological nephew. The joy in his eyes, on his face, lit up whenever he saw my
brother. The smile that crept, then erupted was a sight onto itself. You could
not find a man more proud to have a nephew, especially one that was his biological
nephew. In their veins ran blood that was closer, and truer than in the blood
in his other ‘nieces’ and ‘nephews’. He had someone who he could claim to be
his only ‘true’ nephew. My brother was more special to him than anyone else,
because he had claim to being his ‘true’ uncle. Of course this did not take
away from the rest of the family, as my brother was nephew to the same uncles
and aunts as I had, and Soudloo did not consider our other cousins anything
less than family, and did not show any less love either, but Soudloo saw him as
his special nephew. He also loved our
grandmother dearly. He would spend his paychecks to help feed the family, as at
any point there could be at least eight people staying at my grandmother’s
home, and all those grandchildren that would show up with hungry mouths, and
that can cost a lot of money to feed everyone. One day, he just manned up, and took it upon
himself to feed everyone. He took it upon himself to help alleviate some of the
pressure from my grandmother. Regardless to whatever anyone says; my cousin was
a good man. He loved my grandmother so dearly, he grew up with her being his
mother, and treated her as such, as he should. When she passed away, I think he
was hurt the most. We were all hurt, we were all saddened. But he was really
hurt, and it took a toll on his already fragile body.
For at least the last decade of Soudloo’s
life he would constantly become ill, or injured. Every other month or so I
would hear about a surgery he had, some pneumonia, or something he had to go
stay at the hospital for some time. I
would worry about him. If I was visiting and he would tell me that he had a
pain in his stomach that just would not go away, I would tell him to go to the
hospital. Get it checked out, make sure it’s not an ulcer, or something worse.
Eventually he would, probably not from just me telling him, or rather asking
him to have it checked out. He used to drink quite a bit, I have even had a few
with him, but apparently his health deteriorated to the point where he could
not drink anymore, which was actually good for him. He really was not the type
who should have been drinking. He was much better sober, and when he stayed
sober, as so many of us are. He once had Tuberculosis, but that was treated,
but hey, TB sucks, even if it is dormant. He once broke his leg in a snowmobile
accident, but that healed well. But there the last time he got sick, he did not
heal from it. He had a lung infection of some sort, and possibly a resurgence
of TB. For the last several months he would complain about being sick, and
would make runs to the hospital often. Only to be dismissed, and turned away.
Back in November, I once told him he has to request that the hospital do
something. Anything. Do some tests, ask them to do some tests, and if they say
they cannot do the tests that need to be done he has to insist and that they could
not refuse to somewhere where they can do such tests. They would dismiss him.
They would tell him he had the flu, or a cold. Again, a few months later he
posted on his facebook page about it, and I would implore him to insist that he
needs help, that he needs to find out what was wrong. They would tell him to
quit smoking. He did that, he still was getting worse. He started to noticeably
lose weight, after he had started gaining weight again. When my grandmother
passed away, he fell into a deep depression, and just would not eat often. He
lost some weight, but not enough to look completely emaciated. He then started
to gain weight again, he had an appetite again. He was on his way to heal; he
was on his way to become his normal self. Then he got sick. He lost his
appetite again, he started losing weight, and he started losing strength. For
the last few months I would see him in pain, his face sunken in. Always holding
onto something to keep himself propped up. It used to be I would see him almost every day
at work. We would talk for a bit about what movies came out, what movies are
coming out, what he’s been up to. A short
five to fifteen minutes of catching up, I enjoyed those few minutes I would
speak with him. Looked forward to it actually. I have a very busy social life,
which means there are some family, and friends I will only see every once in a
while, but it does not mean I love them any less, just I do not have the
capacity to split myself in to the number of people I wish I could.
At this point I could tell you the
horrible way my cousin passed on. The loneliness he had. The terrible way the
Qikiqtani General Hospital had treated his case, and the blatant dismissive attitude
presented to him. But I will not go into any more detail about that. He died
alone, away from his family, and we grieve heavily for him. My cousin, my
uncle, my brother, I will miss you, and I love you.
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