Indian Health Center’s grief vigil offers space for remembrance

Grief is complex.

In the same way that there is no one cause, there is no one cure. 

On a Friday night on Milwaukee’s South Side, local Indigenous community members gathered to grieve and try to find healing together.

On June 19, the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center held a candlelight grief vigil for loved ones to remember those who have passed.

The center, at 930 W. Historic Mitchell St., has been around since the 1970s. The grief vigil event began in 2024. 

“Spaces like this are a way to bask in culture and connect with one another,” said Madison Black, project officer at the health center. “We just want people to have a safe space to be as they are.” 

Mark Denning, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, sat at a table coloring a page that read “Thinking of you always.” There were about 15 names down the side of the sheet.

“Learning is eternal, faith is eternal, and so is this process of what we’re going through,” said Denning, referring to the complexity of grief.

It’s Denning’s third year attending the event. During the first two years, when the program focused on recognition of drug overdoses, he was invited as a speaker and someone who had lost multiple children to overdose.

In the back of the room, Narcan kits and training were offered to all attendees. Preventive methods like these have grown as the event has evolved. 

“It wasn’t just about mourning people, they also wanted to be about saving people,” Denning said.

Before the health center offered these events, it wasn’t unusual to lose 26 people in a season, said Denning, a longtime instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. For native communities across the nation, young people ages 10-24 have the highest rate of suicide of all demographic groups.  

It’s why the importance of banding together spoke volumes at the vigil. 

“Our community is so small and close-knit that a lot of times when there’s a loss, it’s felt across the entire community,” Black said.

The night included a welcome song from the RedNationBoyz, a powwow drum circle group for Indigenous youths. 

“(This event) gives other people an opportunity to communicate the same feelings that we may be sharing to each other,” said     Avery Nahwahquaw, co-founder of the RedNationBoyz.

Communal food, crafts and music cultivate conversations about personal grief. 

“Sometimes you feel like nobody else knows what you’re going through. But when you go to something like this, you realize real fast that there’s a lot of people who feel the same way you do,” Nahwahquaw said.

Denning’s journey with grief meant he didn’t work for two years following the passing of his last child. It wasn’t until one day he looked out over a field during a light snowfall and thought, “They’re a part of this now. They’re a part of this world, and wherever I look and wherever I go, this world’s going to be with me, and I’m with them.”

The process of grieving is vital, according to Denning. 

“No one should walk away from our funerals and say ‘they didn’t know I loved them’ or ‘I wish I could have told them I loved them,” he said.

Next to Denning sat Oneida tribal member Jeremiah Johnson, who has his own journey with grief. 

“We have to speak up and do it together. Not one by one, but next to each other,” said Johnson, a South Side native.

The event also gave a larger perspective.

“Even though I have lost a lot, there are people that have suffered 10 times more than me,” Johnson said.

Togetherness during grief gifts the ability to freely express the emotions felt because of grief, Denning explained.

“It doesn’t mean that you’ll ever stop crying. It just means that I see you, I love you, I feel what you’re feeling. I can’t know it, but someone can identify with it,” Denning said.

Attendees spent the evening sharing meals, stories, songs and the peace created in the unity of their grief.  

Grief has no solution, but for the night, it had a place to rest.