Respected elder passes unexpectedly – The Catholic Register

June 10, 2022

Nobody was expecting Indigenous elder John Robinson to die.

“He hadn’t been feeling well for a few days. I finally told him, ‘Enough, you have to go to the hospital,’ ” his grieving daughter Jessica Robinson-Sibbald told The Catholic Register. “He had a massive heart attack at the hospital.”

Mr. Robinson’s death came as a shock to Fr. Wilson Andrade, who was in the midst of arranging to honour Mr. Robinson, 68, for his 50 years of service to the Native People’s Mission at St. Ann’s Church in Toronto. The arrangements were just about in place, and Andrade wanted to tell his close confidant and friend about it face-to-face. That’s when, on May 26, he got the call from Robinson-Sibbald.

“I left everything and I ran, and I was praying to God that I may reach him on time,” Andrade said. “Exactly at the time I reached him there, he passed away. I gave him the last rites.”

Read More: https://www.catholicregister.org/item/34495-respected-elder-passes-unexpectedly