I’ve been so tired for the past few months. My therapist says that grief is exhausting. My dad’s recent passing combined with short winter days and a snowy Vancouver means I seem to be spending more time in bed than out of it.
In this newsletter I begin to reflect on his passing and share a great resource on repair that’s been helpful for teams I’ve worked with recently.
At the end I’ve linked a podcast that talks about the emotional issues created in British boarding schools that are the template for how schools around the world train “leaders”, two spiritual hip-hop songs that I have on repeat at the moment, some new hobbies I’ve taken up, a TV show I love and an app I’m obsessed with.
Words About my Dad:
It’s been 6 years since I last saw the jacaranda trees bloom across Johannesburg. Trips home haven’t coincided with this spectacle that transforms the city until I flew home to be with my family eleven weeks ago. Before being put onto a ventilator my dad made phone calls to various family members and friends. He couldn’t reach me because of the time difference and left me a voice note - he said he was proud of me, it sounded like a goodbye.
My wife and I got on the first flight we could, grateful for clients, colleagues and work that made leaving in such short notice possible and arrived in Joburg three days later. The days that followed are a blur.
What I do recall of those days is praying for the best outcome at the hospital and sitting with my family in the evening preparing ourselves for the worst. Bittersweet were the reunions with cousins, uncles, aunts and friends coming to offer their best wishes.
In the days following his passing I got to hear many stories about my dad from friends and family. These different perspectives on similar experiences added depth and texture to a man I knew as my father for 34 years.
What stands out most for me are my memories of him, as a doctor, counselling terminal patients and family members about the “quality of life” of their final days. This was said with background reference to his own quality of life, being diagnosed with arthritis in his mid-20’s, while my mom was pregnant with me. I’ve only known him as a man with arthritis, my understanding of how this shaped his life becoming clearer and clearer with each passing year and story told.
Before his diagnosis he would go on multi-day hikes, windsurf, play tennis. In his later years his gym routine was regular, low-impact, and designed to manage his joint pain and stiffness. When he received his diagnosis he had an aunt with arthritis who couldn’t leave her bed. He and my mom would visit her every month and she would pass them the key to her home on a stick through her window. This is what arthritis looked like at the time. No one thought my dad would live past 40. A neck fusion, multiple hip and knee replacement surgeries, and an experimental medication he was on reduced his pain and gave him another 20 years of life that he sought to live with quality.
After not seeing my family in person for two years due to COVID, travel bans, postponed flights and last-minute bookings meant that I got to go back to South Africa three times over the last year. The uncertainty of life brought about by the pandemic meant that I was invested in having good quality conversations with my parents while I was there. I wanted to ask them questions that had been on my mind. How did they feel when they were expecting their first children? How did their parents shape them? What was it like living through apartheid, witnessing the group areas act unfold, sending us to private schools despite having more egalitarian values? I got to share about my experiences with pregnancy losses, with depression. The types of things you can’t talk about over a WhatsApp call.
When my dad had a seizure at work 13 years ago we thought he might have had a brain tumour and that those days would be his last. I remember taking him a birthday dinner from Adega while he sat in the hospital awaiting biopsy results. My mom related to me that a friend had offered a comforting prayer during that hospital stay: We pray that we die at the best of times, when God is most pleased with us. My dad passed away just having returned from a trip with my mom to see the great migration in Kenya. They’ve always loved bird watching and game drives and they got to cross this off my mom’s bucket list together. As far as I know, he had settled all debts and was in a good place with all his relationships. He was surrounded by his family when he took his final breaths and had his four sons wash his body and lower it into the ground after he passed. His workplace held a memorial where we got to hear stories from his professional life, laugh at his particular and charming eccentricities.
I don’t think I’ll be able to look at jacaranda trees again without thinking of his passing. It was a special time. He was taken at the best of times.
Facilitation Reflections:
Teams are struggling relationally. Over the past few months I’ve gotten to work with teams who have an increasing awareness that old ways of resolving conflict, turning the matter over to HR or formal complaint procedures end up doing more harm than good. We are looking to hold each other to higher standards than those set by anti-bullying and harassment policies. And we’re longing to turn towards one another, learn together and grow together in ways that can’t be clearly demarcated personal or professional.
In the midst of this, conversations about harm and repair are at the forefront. Luckily there are those on the margins of our systems who have long been engaged in relational accountability work that exist outside of the mainstream for decades already. The mind frames of restorative and relational justice will take some time to embed within all our systems but the sooner we get on board the better.
Have a look at Mia Mingus’s work on apology and think about how this might transform the ways you see your relationships at work and beyond.
Recommendations:
Podcasts:
5.04: Outside Conversations with Richard Beard - On Sad Little Men
When political apartheid ended, like many other middle-class racialized families in South Africa, my parents decided to spend a lot of money to send me to a “good” school. The schools that stood out were those that were modelled on the British all-boys boarding school system. In his recent book, Sad Little Men, Richard Beard tells the story of how these schools were initially set up, how their philosophies spread throughout the world, and the impacts they’ve had on young boys who then become powerful leaders.
Music:
Here are a couple of songs that have been on repeat for me, and some of my favourite lines from them.
Chance the Rapper - We Go High
“Lord bless my lineage, let me be the skinniest
Let me get some time with him, let him know who Kenny is”“They don't take teenage angst at no banks”
Stormzy - Blinded By Your Grace Pt.2 ft MNEK
“I think we got one, I stay prayed up then I get the job done
Yeah, I'm Abigail's yout, but I'm God's son”
Hobbies:
A few years ago my therapist recommended I add some play to my life, around that time I was introduced to the game Wingspan. It’s a card-based, bird-based strategy game that I am in love with. I’ve downloaded the apps, joined Discord channels, watched hour long YouTube videos of people sharing how they got high scores and bought every expansion that’s come out…I’m in deep. If you’re into birds, like my family is (cheesy bulbul birds matching t-shirts check), or into non-competitive games with dynamic constraints and pretty pictures you might want to check it out.
🦜 🦅 🦃 🦢 🦆 Wingspan can be quite cerebral so to get more into my body I tried my hands at crochet. Thanks to some clever Instagram advertising I found myself with a beginner’s kit from The Woobles. I crocheted a little chicken and I’ve now started on a little bunny.
🧶🪝🐣 TV Shows:
I’m not a big sports guy but I really do love this show as a vehicle for telling stories about masculinity, race, class, leadership, group dynamics, perseverance, love, and accountability. While watching Season 1 I spent more time crying than not.
Apps:
Restaurants, cafes and grocery stores can list leftover food at discounted prices and you can use this app to pick it up. Having an abundance of great coffee shops in my neighbourhood has meant eating really affordable, yummy pastries three days a week but I have since learned to control my urges.
Upcoming Offerings:
Next week we’re offering an in-person Below the Surface: Foundations of Conflict Engagement course. Here’s what some of the folks who took the online September offering had to say about it:
I have been raving about this course to friends, family, and colleagues. I have used the techniques at home and at work and I am advocating that we bring Camille and Aslam to facilitate a session for our department. Prior to taking this course, the only way I knew how to respond to conflict was avoidance or hours of exhausting listening and negotiation. Most of the time this led to paralysis. In other contexts, I watched leaders bulldoze and saw the lasting anger and disenfranchisement that resulted. Deep Democracy offers a simple, powerful approach that values the information in conflict, strengthens relationships, and facilitates moving forward. Everybody, and I mean everybody, needs this.”
- Sarah King, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, University of Toronto Scarborough
The Foundations of Conflict Engagement Course (Deep Democracy) was exactly what I needed as a leader working to engage my team with anti-oppressive facilitation practices. The tools that the course provided me with are clear and actionable, and through practice I know I will be able to use them in my daily work. Camille and Aslam are wise and empathetic facilitators who guided the group with care. Their willingness to be vulnerable allowed me to be vulnerable as well, which ensured that I was going "deeper," as the practice requires.
- Suzanne Rackover, University Librarian, Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Thank you for sharing this. thinking of you!
Again, it feels so good to connect with you in this way. Thanks for the care you put into sharing these words. All the best in 2023 <3