When Ken died in February, we had an outpouring of messages from readers, with many telling us how much his columns meant to them. In light of that, we thought we would go back through our files and re-publish some of his columns. Ken would be flattered by the kind words readers expressed. We miss him as a friend and as a storyteller.

I have seen, even become good friends, with people who overcome incredible obstacles: people most of society would write off, only to see them bounce back.

For almost 10 years, I have been battling a medical condition. Initially, I pushed the edge of death to its limit.

There were several times when people thought my journey to the Creator was imminent. I lost track of how many times doctors told me my time wouldn’t be long.

I spent many nights, days, weeks and even months in Saskatoon’s hospitals. There was even a time when I was placed in palliative care. But I refused to give up, and slowly I started to heal.

Today, I am not doing too bad. I am not completely healed, but I can at least go for an evening walk along the lake. I can rest on top of the bank of the lake and look at a beautiful sunset, and thank the Creator for bringing me this far. I have to give my humble appreciation to other patients who I met in the hospitals.

Strength comes in many forms. During my stays in the hospitals, I would always meet someone who was in worse shape than I was.

Somehow, these people found strength to pick themselves up and eventually make it home. Of course, front-line medical staff play an important part, but even they will tell you it is up to the individual to fight to stay alive.

It is up to each and every individual to find that strength many didn’t know they had.

When I first started my hospital stays, I met a man who was told he only had a few weeks to live. He was such a kind man who told me he had accepted his fate.

“But,” he said, “not just now.” This was early spring and high school graduations were still a couple of months away.

The man told me he keeps envisioning himself in the audience as his granddaughter walked up to the stage to receive her high school diploma. Every day his family would visit him, but I could tell it was his granddaughter he was most close to.

Every day, we would sit in the hospital’s garden and just hang out and tell stories.

Then, one day he didn’t show up. Then again, the following day and into the next.

I thought he had passed away and was saddened he didn’t make it to his granddaughter’s graduation.

One day, the door to my room opened up and I heard someone ask if I was awake. I looked and there he was.

Apparently, his condition had improved enough for him to go home. He said he had come over to say hello.

I asked him if he made his granddaughter’s graduation. He said he had and was sitting frontrow centre.

He told me he was never much of a spiritual man.

“The only time I ever went to church was for a funeral or wedding,” he said. He shared how, in his darkest hours in the hospital, he got on his knees and asked God to carry him at least to the graduation, not for himself, but he wanted to leave his granddaughter a message of how proud he was of her.

The day he came to visit, he had recovered fully and was now enjoying time with his granddaughter. He found spiritual strength he didn’t know he had. His granddaughter was his inspiration.

The strength of women is absolutely amazing. I think of my own mother. A woman who spent 10 years in a residential school, and came out only speaking broken English.

She was a woman who saw her children placed in similar schools; the 1960’s scoop of her children and the many hardships single Indigenous mothers faced at the time.

My mom did not let her children go silently. There are those who ask why parents stood by as their children were being placed in residential schools, day schools, group and foster homes and the scoop of Indigenous children to be fostered all over the world.

My mom was not idle; she fought hard, but she was going against the federal government with no formal education. My mother’s strength came from love.

I hope you find that strength through this pandemic. I have been through at least half a dozen killer viruses in my short life.

Common sense and helping each other will be our strength to defend ourselves against this weird time in our history.

-Ken Noskye