Circle of Care
Having experienced such a strong circle of care at the funeral, I didn’t want life to resume right away. I knew the real emotional pain of grief was waiting just around the corner—the moment when I would have to learn how to live without Candace, to accept that she wasn’t coming back.
But then I learned something unexpected.
She wasn’t about to leave.
It was almost as if Candace was standing in the wings of our lives, continuing to orchestrate a circle of care for us.
For one thing, my sisters, Luella and Pat, decided to stay a few days longer. As they settled in, they asked what they could do to help.
I didn’t want them to clean for me—mainly because I didn’t want them to see my mess—so instead I brought up the first large box of unanswered mail that had taken up residence in the basement. Letters, cards, and notes from strangers and friends alike. I set it on the table.
They groaned.
“What do you want to do with these?” my oldest sister, Luella, asked.
“Answer the whole lot of them,” I said, smiling.
Always ready for a challenge, Luella immediately began sorting the pile into cards and letters. “I can answer the cards,” she said.
I handed her the memorial thank-you cards we had prepared.
A few minutes later, she held up the first one she’d written. “Here,” she said. “Is this how you want them?”
I recognized the name on the envelope and paused.
“It’s great,” I said slowly, then hesitated. “But you can also thank that family for the casserole they sent over… and the letter… and the phone call… and—well, I don’t even know what else.”
“You mean—”
I nodded.
Some people had first responded to Candace’s disappearance seven weeks earlier with a note. Then, a few weeks later, they checked in again—with a casserole. Some had sent a Christmas card, and then another card when the news of Candace’s death reached them, often enclosing a cheque for the memorial fund.
Even though the money itself was being handled by Camp Arnes, the office forwarded the accompanying notes to us so we could respond, if we wished. As I explained this to Luella, I realized that unless we coordinated the process carefully—unless we somehow tracked each gesture—responding to every piece of mail individually, every gift and kindness, would mean that some people might receive five thank-you notes.
“Is this the only box?” Luella asked.
I shook my head.
“We’ll never be able to sort them out by memory,” she said.
“I know,” I agreed.
Meanwhile, my younger sister, Pat, who had been quietly reading some of the letters, let out a soft sigh. “This good friend of yours has written you a beautiful letter,” she said gently. “This one only you can answer.” She handed it to me.
I glanced at the name and shook my head. “I know—but she’s not really anyone I know. I don’t know her any more than you do. It honestly won’t make much difference who answers it.”
Pat looked up, surprised. “You mean you don’t know who these people are?” She gestured toward the boxes brimming with notes.
“Some I do,” I said. “Some I’ve never met. Sometimes we may have only had one kind conversation over the telephone.”
So we pulled out a stack of index cards and began to organize—carefully tracking names, gestures, letters, meals, calls—trying, in our small human way, to honor the vast and tender web of care that had gathered around us.
Many of the letters began with the same quiet theme—connection without acquaintance. One, from southern Manitoba, opened with the words: “Although our paths have never crossed, we feel that we have known you people for some time.”
Someone else enclosed a quotation from Elisabeth Elliot:
“Only by acceptance lies peace—not in forgetting, not in resignation, nor in busyness.”
There were many who spoke of being amazed at our stand, at what they called our courage.
“My deepest condolences to you and your whole family,” one wrote. “I must commend you for your bravery.”
A girl a few years older than Candace wrote honestly and without polish:
“During the time Candace was missing, and after she was found, I seemed to be fighting with God. I couldn’t see why He took her life away—why it had to be Candace. She was a Christian, and a darn good one. How could He let this happen to her—and to us? But you just can’t stay angry at God forever. He’s God, and He’s forgiving. Still, I wonder why.”
Her words echoed questions we ourselves had not yet found language for.
A boy who had never met Candace—or any of us—wrote:
“At first I wasn’t sure exactly what this feeling was, and maybe I still’m not. But you see, I believe that I love Candace. I love her as a fellow human being, and I would like to aspire to be more like her—to be able to love and care as much as she did. I’ve cried a lot over this.”
It was hard to understand how people could be so deeply affected by a tragedy in which they had played no part. And yet, I held onto one sentence with particular tenderness: “I aspire to be more like her.”
Inmates at Stony Mountain Institution—a federal maximum- and medium-security penitentiary—wrote to us as well. One letter began, “My greatest and deepest apology for your dear daughter. I am a prisoner convicted of murder.”
Others, in their efforts to comfort us, sometimes said things in ways I don’t think they intended:
“I thank the Lord that He did not test me the way He has tested you. No evil will befall those who trust the Lord. My heart reaches out to you.”
There were homemade cards from children. One showed a child’s idea of heaven, complete with “sun tables and umbrellas”—so close to Candace’s own descriptions that it made me smile through tears. Entire classrooms sent envelopes filled with small notes, telling us they were thinking of us, sharing our loss, remembering.
Some letters told stories of unbearable pain: “Our only son, three and a half years old, was run over by a half-ton truck and instantly killed. Our second daughter was killed when she was fifteen.”
Another wrote: “Our fourth son was stillborn, and our four-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by a young relative.”
And another: “I have a daughter who has struggled with drugs and alcohol for the past four years. She has been through many treatment centers, all without success. Somehow, through our experiences with our daughter, I could almost associate with your heartache.”
At first, these stories felt overwhelming—too much suffering piled upon suffering. But in time, we comforted ourselves by remembering why people had sent them in the first place: not to burden us, but to comfort us.
And as I shared the letters with my sisters, something unexpected happened. They, too, were encouraged. We were all comforted—immeasurably—simply by reading them aloud to one another.
It took the entire day just to sort the mail.
There could not have been a better way to spend the day after.
Only then did I truly understand why we send cards at all.
They are not for the day of the tragedy.
They are for the day after.
*****
It didn’t stop after my sisters left.
Around Valentine’s Day, a poster-sized valentine arrived at our door from the Ridgeland Hutterite Colony. About the same time, a very official letter came from Brian Mulroney and his wife, Mila Mulroney. Another followed from the federal health minister, Jake Epp, and his wife.
By the end of February, the flood had slowed to about ten pieces of mail a day. I kept filling out index cards, coding the gifts and gestures, trying to keep track. Once or twice I attempted to answer letters.
The official letters of thanks were the easiest. I could sign them simply: Cliff and Wilma Derksen.
But the personal letters—the casual, heartfelt ones I would normally have signed with all our names—stopped me cold. For thirteen years, I had written Cliff, Wilma, Candace… and there was no way to break that deeply ingrained habit.
Was it that I wasn’t ready?
Or that I didn’t want to be?
I honestly didn’t know.
There was also a strong response to our public statement about forgiveness, which had appeared in the newspaper. One letter put the confusion bluntly: I am unsure of your feelings exactly, because I have not experienced the death of someone very close to me (knock on wood). All I can do is send you and your family my deepest sympathies. I hope, in time, your hurting stops.
I still do not understand how you can send out precious love for the killer of Candace. He—or she—has stolen something very precious from you, and you send out love? In the Bible doesn’t it say, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth”? I feel much hatred for that person and cannot forgive what he has done to a sweet, innocent thirteen-year-old girl. I do not understand your feelings…
I could feel the pain in those words.
I understood the anger.
An article in The Toronto Star on February 16, 1985, also explored our response. A sociologist was quoted as saying that “the ‘turn the other cheek’ belief is more deeply embedded in those whose religious convictions are strong—especially in the case of Mennonites.”
“I understand the Mennonite religion quite well,” he added, “and I would expect this reaction from them. But I wouldn’t expect it from anyone else without those beliefs.”
I was quietly horrified.
I did not believe forgiveness came more easily to us because we were Mennonite. I didn’t believe it was easier for anyone. Forgiveness is not a cultural reflex; it is a universal human alternative.
We chose forgiveness because we wanted to survive our tragedy. It wasn’t for public approval. It wasn’t for anyone else’s benefit.
We knew—deep down—that forgiveness was a way toward healing.
At the same time, we began to see how the attention and publicity were affecting Candace’s friends. After the initial shock and terror, something unexpected happened: Candace had become almost a heroine—a symbol, even a kind of celebrity.
One of her friends, Kiersten Loewen, wrote a poem that was published in The Free Press:
“I knew her,”
I claim.
But did I really?
Candace, always smiling, laughing,
Giving of herself,
To strangers and friends alike.
Candace, the one who didn’t seem to need anything.
No one thought that anything would happen to her.
“Not to Candace,”
They say.
“She’s so sweet, kind and giving.
Not to her.”
Well, they were wrong.
Something did happen to her.
No more to see the sun again,
The rain again,
Feel pain again…
No more to cheer me up again…
They continued to send us poems.
They continued to send cards.
They continued to visit.
And somehow, in all of it, Candace’s life—her kindness, her faith, her presence—kept reaching outward, still gathering people, still shaping hearts, even after she was gone.
*****
It didn’t stop there.
One evening, I received a call from Michael W. Smith himself. He had heard our story and wanted to give our family complimentary tickets to his upcoming concert. He also invited us to meet him backstage afterward.
We could hardly believe it. Michael W. Smith—the singer of Candace’s favorite song, Friends Are Friends Forever—was scheduled to perform on March 3, and he had personally invited us.
It felt like a spectacular moment—a gift from heaven—with Candace written all over it.
We learned that Michael and his wife had written the song when a close friend, Bill Jackson, from a small Bible study group they belonged to, was preparing to leave town. As plans were being made for a farewell gathering, Debbie suggested they write him a song.
“That’s great,” Michael said. “We’ll write one and send it to him.”
“But what if we wrote it today?” she pressed.
Michael brushed off the idea, thinking, That’s just not possible.
Less than half an hour later, Debbie came outside to the backyard where he was resting and handed him a page of freshly written lyrics.
“I just looked at it and thought, Wow,” he later said. “We walked straight into the house. I sat down at the piano and started writing the music. Three minutes later—it was there. We just looked at each other and said, Wow.”
He sang the song for their friend that very evening, and its impact was immediate and profound.
“It just connects people,” Michael said. “I see it every night. I’ll be singing, and someone over there is crying. Three people over here are holding each other. It’s crazy.”
And friends are friends forever
If the Lord’s the Lord of them…
The lyrics affirm that shared faith in God makes friendships eternal—stronger than distance, stronger even than loss. The song speaks directly to the pain of goodbye, whether caused by moving away, by death, or by the irreversible changes of life. It roots friendship in something larger than time, offering comfort through the belief that even when friends part, the bond remains—held together by God.
But my reaction to the invitation was complicated.
I was thrilled for everyone else—for their excitement, their delight—but I dreaded it.
I was traumatized by the song.
It always made me cry.
How could I possibly sit through hearing her song live, when I couldn’t even listen to a scratchy, faded recording without falling apart?
There was only one way to survive it.
The morning of the concert, I put the tape on and forced myself to listen to Friends Are Friends Forever.
The song had lost none of its power to resurrect Candace’s presence. I could feel her swaying into the room in time with the music, that bright, unmistakable smile on her face—the same smile she wore every time she listened to her song.
I played it again.
And again.
And again.
I tried to replace her memories with my own—memories of my friends—hoping that if I made the song mine, her absence wouldn’t hurt so much. But I couldn’t. It was her song. She had loved it too deeply, played it too often.
The pain in that music would reach out, wrench my heart from its place, and crush it like wet clay.
Then I tried to work through it while doing something ordinary. I dusted the house. But every time the chorus began, the room blurred and I started sobbing.
When Cliff came home, he took one look at me, walked into the living room, and turned the tape off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m listening to it until I don’t cry anymore.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you know that song will always make us cry? You’ll never get over it. Doing this will make you sick—and you have to go tonight. You can’t make yourself sick.”
With that last sentence, he uncovered my secret hope.
I didn’t want to go.
But then Cliff said something that stilled me. He said Candace would be there—that one way of keeping her close was not to resist, but to enter in, to let ourselves be gathered into the circles of care she kept weaving around us, even now.
The concert was beautiful.
And when Michael W. Smith sang Friends Are Friends Forever, it became more than music.
It was art—true and luminous.
A celebration of agape love.
It felt like greatness meeting greatness: love meeting loss,
heaven brushing earth,
God present among us, gently unraveling what we had tied too tightly in our grief.
I cried—and so did everyone else. But it was dark. There were no cameras, no eyes upon us. And it was good to cry.
Candace was there with us all--not as absence, but as comfort--moving quietly through our tears.
But then I learned something unexpected.
She wasn’t about to leave.
It was almost as if Candace was standing in the wings of our lives, continuing to orchestrate a circle of care for us.
For one thing, my sisters, Luella and Pat, decided to stay a few days longer. As they settled in, they asked what they could do to help.
I didn’t want them to clean for me—mainly because I didn’t want them to see my mess—so instead I brought up the first large box of unanswered mail that had taken up residence in the basement. Letters, cards, and notes from strangers and friends alike. I set it on the table.
They groaned.
“What do you want to do with these?” my oldest sister, Luella, asked.
“Answer the whole lot of them,” I said, smiling.
Always ready for a challenge, Luella immediately began sorting the pile into cards and letters. “I can answer the cards,” she said.
I handed her the memorial thank-you cards we had prepared.
A few minutes later, she held up the first one she’d written. “Here,” she said. “Is this how you want them?”
I recognized the name on the envelope and paused.
“It’s great,” I said slowly, then hesitated. “But you can also thank that family for the casserole they sent over… and the letter… and the phone call… and—well, I don’t even know what else.”
“You mean—”
I nodded.
Some people had first responded to Candace’s disappearance seven weeks earlier with a note. Then, a few weeks later, they checked in again—with a casserole. Some had sent a Christmas card, and then another card when the news of Candace’s death reached them, often enclosing a cheque for the memorial fund.
Even though the money itself was being handled by Camp Arnes, the office forwarded the accompanying notes to us so we could respond, if we wished. As I explained this to Luella, I realized that unless we coordinated the process carefully—unless we somehow tracked each gesture—responding to every piece of mail individually, every gift and kindness, would mean that some people might receive five thank-you notes.
“Is this the only box?” Luella asked.
I shook my head.
“We’ll never be able to sort them out by memory,” she said.
“I know,” I agreed.
Meanwhile, my younger sister, Pat, who had been quietly reading some of the letters, let out a soft sigh. “This good friend of yours has written you a beautiful letter,” she said gently. “This one only you can answer.” She handed it to me.
I glanced at the name and shook my head. “I know—but she’s not really anyone I know. I don’t know her any more than you do. It honestly won’t make much difference who answers it.”
Pat looked up, surprised. “You mean you don’t know who these people are?” She gestured toward the boxes brimming with notes.
“Some I do,” I said. “Some I’ve never met. Sometimes we may have only had one kind conversation over the telephone.”
So we pulled out a stack of index cards and began to organize—carefully tracking names, gestures, letters, meals, calls—trying, in our small human way, to honor the vast and tender web of care that had gathered around us.
Many of the letters began with the same quiet theme—connection without acquaintance. One, from southern Manitoba, opened with the words: “Although our paths have never crossed, we feel that we have known you people for some time.”
Someone else enclosed a quotation from Elisabeth Elliot:
“Only by acceptance lies peace—not in forgetting, not in resignation, nor in busyness.”
There were many who spoke of being amazed at our stand, at what they called our courage.
“My deepest condolences to you and your whole family,” one wrote. “I must commend you for your bravery.”
A girl a few years older than Candace wrote honestly and without polish:
“During the time Candace was missing, and after she was found, I seemed to be fighting with God. I couldn’t see why He took her life away—why it had to be Candace. She was a Christian, and a darn good one. How could He let this happen to her—and to us? But you just can’t stay angry at God forever. He’s God, and He’s forgiving. Still, I wonder why.”
Her words echoed questions we ourselves had not yet found language for.
A boy who had never met Candace—or any of us—wrote:
“At first I wasn’t sure exactly what this feeling was, and maybe I still’m not. But you see, I believe that I love Candace. I love her as a fellow human being, and I would like to aspire to be more like her—to be able to love and care as much as she did. I’ve cried a lot over this.”
It was hard to understand how people could be so deeply affected by a tragedy in which they had played no part. And yet, I held onto one sentence with particular tenderness: “I aspire to be more like her.”
Inmates at Stony Mountain Institution—a federal maximum- and medium-security penitentiary—wrote to us as well. One letter began, “My greatest and deepest apology for your dear daughter. I am a prisoner convicted of murder.”
Others, in their efforts to comfort us, sometimes said things in ways I don’t think they intended:
“I thank the Lord that He did not test me the way He has tested you. No evil will befall those who trust the Lord. My heart reaches out to you.”
There were homemade cards from children. One showed a child’s idea of heaven, complete with “sun tables and umbrellas”—so close to Candace’s own descriptions that it made me smile through tears. Entire classrooms sent envelopes filled with small notes, telling us they were thinking of us, sharing our loss, remembering.
Some letters told stories of unbearable pain: “Our only son, three and a half years old, was run over by a half-ton truck and instantly killed. Our second daughter was killed when she was fifteen.”
Another wrote: “Our fourth son was stillborn, and our four-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by a young relative.”
And another: “I have a daughter who has struggled with drugs and alcohol for the past four years. She has been through many treatment centers, all without success. Somehow, through our experiences with our daughter, I could almost associate with your heartache.”
At first, these stories felt overwhelming—too much suffering piled upon suffering. But in time, we comforted ourselves by remembering why people had sent them in the first place: not to burden us, but to comfort us.
And as I shared the letters with my sisters, something unexpected happened. They, too, were encouraged. We were all comforted—immeasurably—simply by reading them aloud to one another.
It took the entire day just to sort the mail.
There could not have been a better way to spend the day after.
Only then did I truly understand why we send cards at all.
They are not for the day of the tragedy.
They are for the day after.
*****
It didn’t stop after my sisters left.
Around Valentine’s Day, a poster-sized valentine arrived at our door from the Ridgeland Hutterite Colony. About the same time, a very official letter came from Brian Mulroney and his wife, Mila Mulroney. Another followed from the federal health minister, Jake Epp, and his wife.
By the end of February, the flood had slowed to about ten pieces of mail a day. I kept filling out index cards, coding the gifts and gestures, trying to keep track. Once or twice I attempted to answer letters.
The official letters of thanks were the easiest. I could sign them simply: Cliff and Wilma Derksen.
But the personal letters—the casual, heartfelt ones I would normally have signed with all our names—stopped me cold. For thirteen years, I had written Cliff, Wilma, Candace… and there was no way to break that deeply ingrained habit.
Was it that I wasn’t ready?
Or that I didn’t want to be?
I honestly didn’t know.
There was also a strong response to our public statement about forgiveness, which had appeared in the newspaper. One letter put the confusion bluntly: I am unsure of your feelings exactly, because I have not experienced the death of someone very close to me (knock on wood). All I can do is send you and your family my deepest sympathies. I hope, in time, your hurting stops.
I still do not understand how you can send out precious love for the killer of Candace. He—or she—has stolen something very precious from you, and you send out love? In the Bible doesn’t it say, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth”? I feel much hatred for that person and cannot forgive what he has done to a sweet, innocent thirteen-year-old girl. I do not understand your feelings…
I could feel the pain in those words.
I understood the anger.
An article in The Toronto Star on February 16, 1985, also explored our response. A sociologist was quoted as saying that “the ‘turn the other cheek’ belief is more deeply embedded in those whose religious convictions are strong—especially in the case of Mennonites.”
“I understand the Mennonite religion quite well,” he added, “and I would expect this reaction from them. But I wouldn’t expect it from anyone else without those beliefs.”
I was quietly horrified.
I did not believe forgiveness came more easily to us because we were Mennonite. I didn’t believe it was easier for anyone. Forgiveness is not a cultural reflex; it is a universal human alternative.
We chose forgiveness because we wanted to survive our tragedy. It wasn’t for public approval. It wasn’t for anyone else’s benefit.
We knew—deep down—that forgiveness was a way toward healing.
At the same time, we began to see how the attention and publicity were affecting Candace’s friends. After the initial shock and terror, something unexpected happened: Candace had become almost a heroine—a symbol, even a kind of celebrity.
One of her friends, Kiersten Loewen, wrote a poem that was published in The Free Press:
“I knew her,”
I claim.
But did I really?
Candace, always smiling, laughing,
Giving of herself,
To strangers and friends alike.
Candace, the one who didn’t seem to need anything.
No one thought that anything would happen to her.
“Not to Candace,”
They say.
“She’s so sweet, kind and giving.
Not to her.”
Well, they were wrong.
Something did happen to her.
No more to see the sun again,
The rain again,
Feel pain again…
No more to cheer me up again…
They continued to send us poems.
They continued to send cards.
They continued to visit.
And somehow, in all of it, Candace’s life—her kindness, her faith, her presence—kept reaching outward, still gathering people, still shaping hearts, even after she was gone.
*****
It didn’t stop there.
One evening, I received a call from Michael W. Smith himself. He had heard our story and wanted to give our family complimentary tickets to his upcoming concert. He also invited us to meet him backstage afterward.
We could hardly believe it. Michael W. Smith—the singer of Candace’s favorite song, Friends Are Friends Forever—was scheduled to perform on March 3, and he had personally invited us.
It felt like a spectacular moment—a gift from heaven—with Candace written all over it.
We learned that Michael and his wife had written the song when a close friend, Bill Jackson, from a small Bible study group they belonged to, was preparing to leave town. As plans were being made for a farewell gathering, Debbie suggested they write him a song.
“That’s great,” Michael said. “We’ll write one and send it to him.”
“But what if we wrote it today?” she pressed.
Michael brushed off the idea, thinking, That’s just not possible.
Less than half an hour later, Debbie came outside to the backyard where he was resting and handed him a page of freshly written lyrics.
“I just looked at it and thought, Wow,” he later said. “We walked straight into the house. I sat down at the piano and started writing the music. Three minutes later—it was there. We just looked at each other and said, Wow.”
He sang the song for their friend that very evening, and its impact was immediate and profound.
“It just connects people,” Michael said. “I see it every night. I’ll be singing, and someone over there is crying. Three people over here are holding each other. It’s crazy.”
And friends are friends forever
If the Lord’s the Lord of them…
The lyrics affirm that shared faith in God makes friendships eternal—stronger than distance, stronger even than loss. The song speaks directly to the pain of goodbye, whether caused by moving away, by death, or by the irreversible changes of life. It roots friendship in something larger than time, offering comfort through the belief that even when friends part, the bond remains—held together by God.
But my reaction to the invitation was complicated.
I was thrilled for everyone else—for their excitement, their delight—but I dreaded it.
I was traumatized by the song.
It always made me cry.
How could I possibly sit through hearing her song live, when I couldn’t even listen to a scratchy, faded recording without falling apart?
There was only one way to survive it.
The morning of the concert, I put the tape on and forced myself to listen to Friends Are Friends Forever.
The song had lost none of its power to resurrect Candace’s presence. I could feel her swaying into the room in time with the music, that bright, unmistakable smile on her face—the same smile she wore every time she listened to her song.
I played it again.
And again.
And again.
I tried to replace her memories with my own—memories of my friends—hoping that if I made the song mine, her absence wouldn’t hurt so much. But I couldn’t. It was her song. She had loved it too deeply, played it too often.
The pain in that music would reach out, wrench my heart from its place, and crush it like wet clay.
Then I tried to work through it while doing something ordinary. I dusted the house. But every time the chorus began, the room blurred and I started sobbing.
When Cliff came home, he took one look at me, walked into the living room, and turned the tape off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m listening to it until I don’t cry anymore.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you know that song will always make us cry? You’ll never get over it. Doing this will make you sick—and you have to go tonight. You can’t make yourself sick.”
With that last sentence, he uncovered my secret hope.
I didn’t want to go.
But then Cliff said something that stilled me. He said Candace would be there—that one way of keeping her close was not to resist, but to enter in, to let ourselves be gathered into the circles of care she kept weaving around us, even now.
The concert was beautiful.
And when Michael W. Smith sang Friends Are Friends Forever, it became more than music.
It was art—true and luminous.
A celebration of agape love.
It felt like greatness meeting greatness: love meeting loss,
heaven brushing earth,
God present among us, gently unraveling what we had tied too tightly in our grief.
I cried—and so did everyone else. But it was dark. There were no cameras, no eyes upon us. And it was good to cry.
Candace was there with us all--not as absence, but as comfort--moving quietly through our tears.
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