There has been a Coping column for as long as I’ve worked at this newspaper and that will be 26 years in May. But there will be no more Coping after this issue.
Peter Griffiths, our Coping columnist, died of cancer on March 20 at the age of 67.
When I look back at his first columns in January 1979, I am struck by two things. One is the emphasis he continually put on communication. It was a skill he wrote about often. He explained that if people don’t say something correctly, it can sound more like an attack, which causes other people to become angry, defensive or to stop listening. He asked people to think about how they relay facts just as much as the information they want to deliver.
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The other thing I notice is his mug shot. There was Peter’s distinctive goatee, in the early years, but with black hair instead of white.
Long-term readers of the column know Peter often wrote about domestic abuse. He was an early advocate for women’s and children’s rights, so much so that male readers chided him for seeming to always take the female’s side.
Peter saw a lot of domestic violence in his job as a mental health counsellor for the province in Prince Albert, Sask. In his 30 years there, he dealt with programs for men who batter, but also worked with clients on their anger management, addictions, depression and bereavement.
When he retired from government service, he shifted his office to home and worked as a private counsellor.
Peter often stopped by the Producer office for coffee and a chat. He was always eager for feedback and suggestions for column topics.
Often the talk turned to holiday places visited, nature hikes and bird watching he and his wife Ruth had done and commiseration about the challenges of raising teenagers.
Peter was not our longest-running columnist. There were others such as Emmie Oddie, Rose Jardine, Doug Gilroy and J. M. Goldenberg who wrote for three and four decades. But Peter was the dean of the present batch.
He was always hyperactive and talked a mile a minute, so it was quite a change to see him these last few months when cancer made him slower and tired.
Yet he was still diligent about filing his column. He gained emotional support from the readers and Ruth said it gave him something else to think about in his final weeks rather than worry about death.
While the editors are still pondering a replacement for the column, it will not be called Coping. That was clearly Peter Griffiths’ own.
