[Music]
hi everyone my name is Noel Clarke and
from IC BSL project i’m working with a
local nonprofit called the beer ad
foundation it was created in the honor
of the life of brad parker a man who
died while rock climbing in Yosemite
Brad’s friends and family members joined
together in the wake of his death and
created the foundation so that they
could continue spreading his positive
outlook and his belief in the next
generation Brad’s good friend Jerry
dodgeville once said of him you need a
lot of people in the course of life but
every now and then you meet someone who
is a special being he was one of those
people when I first heard the statement
I was struck with an interesting
question why do some people we meet
leave such lasting effects on us even
after they die in search for an answer I
began looking at cultures with strong
ties to death and the dying and this led
me to the Tanner tirage and culture in a
TED talk entitled life that doesn’t end
in death I learned that funerals in the
Trojan culture are more cause for
celebration than for morning Tanner
trojans are a group of indigenous people
living in Sulawesi Indonesia and because
of their belief that death isn’t simply
an end and that life continues on in
another stage they are able to view
funerals as a celebration of the past
loved one’s life and the impacts that
they had on those around them an
interesting story that I heard in this
TED talk was of a woman who died and
whose funeral was held 20 years later
she resided in her home until this time
and was symbolically fed and cared for
by her children and grandchildren until
they could Acura nuff resources to put
on a funeral they felt was fitting for
her this may seem like a rare occurrence
in our culture but in the Trojan culture
it is seen as entirely respectful and
highly commonplace and this reflects the
belief that death isn’t an end to a
relationship but merely a transformation
of its nature this belief is further
reflected in the
presence of the tone Conan or the
traditional ancestral homes of the
Trojan people these beautifully
decorated homes function as the center
of life and how’s the deceased loved
ones when I realized the tangent rajan’s
great acceptance of death and the dying
I began looking at Western cultures view
and how it is so vastly different from
the Tana Trojans when I first thought
about grief I thought about the
five-step grieving process this is a
process that includes denial anger
bargaining depression and acceptance
when I first thought about it I thought
it was a great way to simplify the
stages of grief for those who may be
experiencing a hard loss but later I
learned that I can actually function to
isolate those who aren’t feeling grief
in the same way I in the book the other
side of sadness by bereavement
psychologist George a banana I heard a
story of a woman who lost her daughter
in the events of 911 she returned to
work nearly a week later and her friends
and family members were concerned that
she was caught up in the denial stage of
her grief they couldn’t accept that her
experience of grief was different from
their own experience another thing I
learned from this same book is that more
often than not we show signs of
resilience shortly after experiencing a
hard loss and this goes entirely against
the thinking of the five-step grieving
process I came to the conclusion that
our process of grief should not be
widely defined for individuals whose
experiences of grief are as unique as
their own experiences in life I read a
poem called patterns by Amy Lowell which
reflects the same thinking patterns is
about a woman who lost her soon-to-be
husband to war it has now caught up in
following the patterns of grief and
being a pattern herself she must display
the correct signs of grief so that the
love for loss fiance is not question
instead of functioning to console her
and give her a community of people to
turn to this instead makes her feel more
isolated she wears a stiff and lavish
gown decorated with jewels and
embroidered in patterns to cover up her
grief broken body
reading this poem reminded me of the
time that I met Brad Parker’s fiancee
about a year ago he died on the day he
proposed to her and even two years later
I could still see the grief she felt
when she talked about him even though I
could tell she was also very happy I had
been positively affected by the beer ad
foundation well I had never experienced
a profound loss in my own life merely
thinking about losing those I love is
enough to send me into fits of anxiety
and makes me beg an answer to the
question how do they go on the answer is
they don’t at least not in the same way
i watch the film manchester-by-the-sea
in which the protagonist brother dies
and he is now charged with the task of
being his nephews legal guardian the
film portrays their relationships and
the unique unique experiences they have
with their grief it ends and medea
stress or in the midst of things and I
think this speaks volumes unto the very
nature of bereavement and resilience our
hearts continue to beat even if they do
so painfully why bread literature and
watch film on the human characteristic
of resilience I’d never felt it
personally in my own life and so I
wanted more depth on the topic I went in
to talk to mr. Scharffen about his
opinion of resilience and what I didn’t
know is that recently he had just lost a
very dear friend and he told me he could
still feel the presence of this friend
in his life and thought this was an
example of resilience working in his
life he defined resilience as the deeper
understanding that death isn’t simply a
meaningless end I don’t know about you
all but this to me sounds a little bit
like the Tanner triage and belief
comparing it to the idea of birth as a
death to one stage in life mr. Scharffen
said that the death we are accustomed to
might just be the end of the
developmental process of our spirits
just as we need nine months in the womb
for our cells to develop and our bodies
to take form maybe our years here on
this earth our developmental process for
the formation and maturation of our
spiritual selves part of the reason we
fear death so much
is that we never think about it for
longer than just in passing we are so
caught up in progressing and our daily
lives we don’t give ourselves time to
stop and think about the deeper
existential questions like why am I here
and what is my purpose in this life the
death of a loved one however gives us a
jolt and awakens us to these questions
and where we stand on them my challenge
for all of you is to not wait for the
death of a loved one to change something
about your relationships or your life
and to remember that you are more
resilient than you may think thank you
[Music] [Applause]