Last week, there were three deaths in the street community.

One was an older man, quite sick. Then there was a healthy young woman who died from unknown circumstances, and another man that I did not know.

None of these passings were mentioned in the media. They were not that well known. In fact, all three lived on the ”wrong side of the tracks” so to speak, so I guess it is somewhat normal in today’s society not to bother with their deaths. After all, they did not leave a mark or make any special contribution.

The old man was grizzled, at times cantankerous, and an alcoholic. The young woman was a beautiful, loving mother with an addiction to drugs. Under these circumstances, it’s no wonder there was no impact made in their passing on.

Or was there?

As I was serving meals at the kitchen, I observed a quietness uncommon to this community. I put it down to the new paint job at first, but as snippets of conversations would reach my ears, I began to realize that this community was grieving. The reactions to these deaths was no different from any other community, just a little more extreme. Memories both good and bad wafted in the air as people tried to understand. The male friend of the young woman got so drunk and violent, he had to cool off in a holding cell. The next day, I could tell he was hurting, and not from the alcohol. He was on the verge of tears all the time I talked with him. Friends of the old man forgot his crustiness, and concentrated instead on the man underneath the hard shell.

“What a waste,” was a comment I heard more than once, and it got me thinking about life and death in general.

When these people were younger, did they have dreams and aspirations for the future? Did they set goals for themselves? Did they achieve any of them?

When we look at our own lives, did we achieve what we wanted to? If we didn’t, how did we handle it?

Many times, when we run into a wall in the pursuit of our goals, we become disheartened and face the choice of accepting defeat and moving on, setting another goal, or living with the regret of underachieving. Many, sad to say, are in the latter category and as a result, seldom take another step up the goal-setting ladder.

I see it often in the street community, and in other communities as well. Instead of resetting goals, we turn to other things such as work, sports, alcohol, video games, drugs, and even church. One disappointment often leads to another, and we begin to establish a pattern we will follow until something makes us change, or until our life is over.

So did the lives of these people make an impact? Did they affect other peoples lives? They sure did, although not by what they achieved or didn’t achieve, but because their lives so succinctly reflected the lives of the many who surrounded them, and even sometimes our own.

Society as a whole was not affected by their deaths. Red Deer did not come to a stop or anything like that. But to the people they knew — parents, children, and friends — they meant the world.

That’s the way I see it.

Chris