Sunday, March 17, 2024
It hit me mid-onion. Maybe it was because my eyes were already watering. Maybe it was because there was something in that kinetic activity that triggered a memory. A memory of chopping onions, making food together, chopping wood, sewing a hem, singing.
Jean Gunn is dead. My dad told me that over a month ago. I said oh and filed it away. Until I was chopping onions in my Danish kitchen this evening and suddenly found myself crying at the loss of my childhood Girl Guide leader. A little British woman who added r's to open vowels and had the warmest smile.
Jean taught me many skills in those years. How to start fires, how to organize a campsite, how to orientate yourself in the woods, how to hike safely, how to sew and knit and create open spaces for sharing and laughing. These skill sets have stayed with me, honed under her tutelage a lifetime ago.
And what hit me today mid-onion was what she also taught me, a lesson that I didn't quite get at the time, being so young. She taught me to keep going, to serve and to love despite -- despite life's many sorrows and setbacks.
Jean's dear son Robbie was killed on his way home from school. His was the first funeral I ever attended in my young life. I remember the day it happened, the sirens echoing over the snow. The community grieved. And that young mother could have withdrawn, could have locked herself away and screamed justifably and rightfully about the injustices of life. She could have let anger and hate and bitterness take root. She could have let jealousy fester. She could have lost herself to grief.
Instead she kept being a Girl Guide leader, kept volunteering her time and talents, kept shaping girls into young women, kept watching kids younger than her son had been growing and becoming. She kept going.
I loved being a Girl Guide. I have such wonderful memories of camp-outs and sing-a-longs and sleep-overs and jamborees. Jean mediated all of that, patiently and lovingly dealing with all those high-strung girls. She was there when I received my All Round Cord, and she was proud.
On my honour, I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God, my Queen and my country;
To help other people at all times;
To obey the Guide Law
RIP beautiful and dutiful Jean Gunn, a true guide.
