Certain people have the ability to light up a room, make you feel like you belong within seconds of talking to them, and invite laughter and smiles to every conversation. That’s Barry Aiken in a nutshell.
Not only is Aiken known for his friendliness and giving nature, but he’s known for his resiliency and toughness. That attitude has never shone through more clearly than the way he’s attacking life despite a recent stage four cancer diagnosis.
The combination of his cancer diagnosis and the Covid-19 pandemic leading to Aiken being laid off has put him and his partner Terri Lalonde in a tough situation. They plan on moving to Edmonton to be closer to family and to help them out Riley and Laurel St. Onge put together a donation campaign for Barry and Terri while Rhoselyn and Norman Tolentino organized a Filipino food fundraiser.
Aiken is just the type of person whose kindness leads to others paying it forward with kindness of their own, and that’s what has played out here with two different families stepping up to help out where they can for a man they believe deserves it.
Laurel St. Onge and son Riley feel so strongly about Barry and Terri that they set up donation campaign to help Barry and Terri in such an uncertain and tough time.
“Barry and Terri both worked at Rocanville home centre with my son (Riley) and they became good friends and then friends with us, too,” said Laurel St. Onge.
“When we saw that he needed help, in the back of my mind I knew we needed to do something for him, but we just didn’t have the time. Then when I saw he was moving to be closer to family I thought ‘time’s running out here and we’ve got to do something whether we’ve got time or not.’
“They’re just really good people. Even when we talked to the credit union in Rocanville—where we set up the funding—they said to us, ‘we’re so glad somebody is doing something for him because they’re such nice people and he’s such a hard worker.’ This is somebody who really needs it and deserves it. With everything going on right now we just knew we needed to do something.
“We thought just a fundraiser online where people can either donate at a Conexus—they can do that at any Conexus in the area—or they can just go online and donate with an e-transfer at [email protected],” she said. “This is a direct donation to them so what you donate all goes to them. Everybody thinks the world of them and he just needs some help. We are family, we’re not blood family, but we are family. That’s just the way we view them.
“They’re very humble people. The girls at the credit union were so happy someone is doing something because they’re so nice. At Christmas time Barry and Terri brought them treats and every time he has chemo or was in the hospital here, he brings donuts for the staff. They’re just very giving and thoughtful people. They give to everybody so this is a chance for somebody to give back to them.”
Despite the hard times he’s going through, Aiken couldn’t feel more humbled and appreciative of his friends, who he refers to as family, while sitting outside on a warm summer day enjoying the Filipino food fundraiser in his honour.
“When they said they were going to do this for us, it just touched my heart,” he said. “I’m 69 years old and I find out I have stage four cancer and then these people step up and do this for me? Wow, it’s just amazing. You can’t ask for a better family—it’s overwhelming. You deal with all this and then you’ve got folks like this who step up and don’t quit, they just go ahead and do it. You can’t ask for anything more. I’d do the same for them in a heartbeat and they know that. They’re amazing people.
“It’s hard enough to accept that you’ve got cancer and to deal with that and everything else. Financially, we can’t survive here anymore so we’re going to be moving to Edmonton and be close to family because who know’s how long I’ve got. They tell me I have a year and a half, but I said, ‘you don’t know me.’ We’re moving at the end of the month and then all these people stepped up to help us financially, it’s overwhelming.
“We got to work with this young lady (Rhoselyn Tolentino) at the Co-op and we got to know her and basically adopted her as our granddaughter,” he said. “Then the rest of her family is basically all of our family. We fell in love with everybody and they accepted us and we accepted them as family. Them doing this for us means so much. Yesterday was so busy, they sold out by 3 p.m., its been unbelievable. You can smell how good it is through the town. It’s been awesome.”
Aiken and his wife Terri have lived their lives helping other people out because it’s the right thing to do and the support they’ve received in their time of need is how others are paying them back for all they’ve done in the community.
“My wife and I, we’re the same,” he said. “If somebody needs some help then we help them. We had a restaurant at one time and we had a food truck at one time and we helped people out. We’ve fed people for nothing because we knew they didn’t have any money and we wanted to make people feel good. Just because you have a restaurant doesn’t mean that you can’t help people, it was the same with the food truck. We’d give people hamburgers and hotdogs because we knew they didn’t have the money and we wanted to help them.
“It all comes down to respect. A lot of people don’t know the meaning of that word anymore. Show respect to everyone. People sometimes forget what it’s like to have nothing and we haven’t forgotten that, it’s all about picking up your socks and keeping on going and it’s important to keep coming back stronger than before. We try to help everyone as much as we can.
Given the circumstances, many people would struggle to keep pushing on to live their life—but that’s not Barry Aiken, he’s a fighter.
“I got laid off because of Covid-19 and two weeks later I found I’ve got stage four cancer, our life went down real quick, but we’re not giving up,” he said.
“You’ve got to keep fighting. A lot of people give up too easily. Yes, cancer is not fun, this is not curable what I have. They can regulate it and prolong my life, but can’t cure it and I’ve accepted that. A lot of people give up mentally, but it’s over as soon as you do, so I won’t. You’ve got to live your life, I’m not giving up. I’ve got too much to live for, I’ve got my beautiful wife with me and I’m not going anywhere.”
“My dad used to say this and I say it to Barry, ‘hell doesn’t want him, heaven is afraid he’s taking over, so he ain’t going nowhere,’” said Terri Lalonde.
