The Strength of Communities
By G. Tomlinson
Source: Flickr.com
In tough times, being a member of a community can be highly beneficial. Each person, whether or not they are aware, is part of multiple communities – be it at a church, the work place or online social networks. And so it was with two families who were supported by their communities during a time of personal tragedy: the Carlins and the Mays.
The Carlin family of North Fork, California, experienced a tragedy in January 2010 when 57-year-old Cathleen “Caitlin” Carlin passed away from cancer. No mortuary had been chosen, due to pre-planned wishes. Instead, the community worked together to provide a family-managed funeral for Caitlin at low cost: her husband, Bob, and a family friend built the casket; the hospice volunteer helped in obtaining her death certificate; the county coroner took care of her body for 12 days while arrangements were made; her guitar teacher held a celebration of Caitlin’s life. Various friends had researched how to perform family-managed funerals, including the legal aspects to such a ceremony, learning that a funeral service could be managed by the family as long as they had the right permits. Together, the community was able to honor Caitlin in a personal, thoughtful, and affordable way. The full story of how the family conducted the service with help from the community can be found here.
In February 2010, the May family of Eastern Tennessee experienced a tragedy when 15-year-old Aaron May accidentally rode his sled into the path of an oncoming car and was killed. His mother, Robin, was out of work and struggling to pay hospital bills for treatment of brain cancer, which Aaron had been diagnosed with at age 11 and had apparently beaten. Robin could not fathom how she would be able to afford a service; Aaron’s pre-existing condition had prevented a life insurance policy. The various communities in the May family’s life stepped up to donate different aspects of the service: a funeral director who attended their church donated the casket and vault; their church paid other funeral expenses; another church Aaron sometimes attended held a benefit supper to raise money; another person anonymously donated a grave plot; Aaron’s friends went door-to-door in their neighborhood and collected the amount for the headstone. When a member of their community was struggling, many people stepped forward to help.
In a further show of strength and forgiveness, Robin reached out to the neighbor that was driving the car which killed her son. A month prior to the accident, Robin had learned there was a possible regrowth of Aaron’s brain tumor. She never told Aaron. Robin came to believe that the accident was “destiny” – that it prevented Aaron, a highly active child, from experiencing the restrictions that would inevitably have come from his returned cancer. With this understanding, she adopted the driver of the car and his wife into her own family and keeps in touch with them daily. Read the full story for innumerable examples of kindness within this community.
