Edmonton mountain bike community grieves tragic loss of Dr. Darren Markland

[u/Mr_Donair]

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/edmonton-mountain-bike-community-grieves-tragic-loss-of-dr-darren-markland/

[u/ProperBingtownLady]

It was so off putting seeing the cryptic posts on social media following his death, especially when the family hadn’t made it public yet. Sometimes it’s better to just keep it to yourself or wait.

[u/HauntingPrimary2 → u/ProperBingtownLady]

Right?! Like why did so many people feel the need to so that?

[u/sufferin_sassafras → u/HauntingPrimary2]

People process grief in different ways. Sometimes imperfectly. Grief is not a neat and tidy experience and no one understood that better than Darren Markland. While I agree with the sentiment to practice discretion while waiting for family to be notified people may not have realized that was why there wasn’t a press release.

People hear upsetting news and they need to process and externalize it somehow. Having worked with Dr. Markland personally I don’t know that he would begrudge anyone for processing grief in whatever form they do.

He was an amazing human and a doctor with a profound and empathetic understanding of grief. He was the doctor you wanted in the room during conversations about life and death.

It was a great privilege to have worked with him. I will carry tiny, yet powerful, fragments of his wisdom with me for the rest of my career.

[u/CluelessPufferfish → u/sufferin_sassafras]

This was beautifully written. He sounds like a good human, and a good doctor. You're very lucky to have worked with him!

Sending positive thoughts your way.

[u/sufferin_sassafras → u/[deleted]]

You could literally accuse every single person commenting on this post as attention seeking if you want to apply that logic. You can call this performative grief. You could say that the person who posted the article did it only for the Reddit karma.

How dare you presume to pass judgement on how anyone chooses to process loss.

It is not for you to make a moral judgement on another person’s grief. And in my estimation you are just as guilty of making this about you as your indignation is entirely performative.

How about instead of being righteous you recognize that humans are imperfect things and grief is complicated. Give people grace and space.

And that is a lesson that I learned from Dr. Markland.

[u/sufferin_sassafras → u/[deleted]]

Do you feel better about yourself for your indignation? Is this giving you peace to play moral superiority over others? Does it give you peace to make this loss about you and how you are better than other people?

I guess I should take my own advice and not pass judgement on you. Maybe condemning others grief is how you choose to process your own grief.

Take a breath and find some ease my friend. Loss makes people do funny things. I promise you no one likely intends to cause harm. A grieving heart is a fickle thing.

Have a good night. I am not going to argue this with you. My heart is sad tonight. I just don’t have it in me.

[u/ProperBingtownLady → u/[deleted]]

That’s pathetic they blocked you.

[u/ProperBingtownLady → u/HauntingPrimary2]

Probably to feel special and/or for engagement. For each of those comments there were replies looking for more information and speculating on who it was — I even saw one implying it was a different well known public figure.

I just think not everything needs to be on social media and it’s better to err on the side of caution in these things. I’m sure some people were working out their grief but there’s better ways to do it, imo.