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| I stole this from a Dave Rutherford tweet, but am pretty sure it's going viral, so that should be okay. |
On 11 September 2001, we were told by those who could
remember days of similar impact—Hiroshima, Kennedy’s assassination—that there
are days we remember every detail of. Forever after, we tell people where we
were when, what we were doing when, how we heard that. We define our life by before
that day and after it.
Forever
our days are the pre and the post.
For
many in Canmore and High River, those days will be the days before and the days
after Thursday, 20 June 2013. A day later for the people of Calgary and Siksika
Nation. Over the course of the weekend, breath was held and then released in Red
Deer, Drumheller, Medicine Hat. After the devastation upriver, their fear was
understandable.
June
20 and 21, and the days which followed. The longest days of the year twice over
in 2013.
This
is my tenth year in my adopted province. Twice in that ten
years Southern Alberta has been ravaged by floods, though 2005 is only a memory
now. The Flood of the Century forgotten in less than a decade. I have come to
love Alberta, and am proud and delighted to live where I do.
On
this day where we celebrate the nation we live in, if you’re like me you’re
feeling, perhaps, a little guilty to be celebrating anything while others toil in in homes that, unlike your own, are
not dry or safe or perhaps even standing. How can we celebrate anything,
especially something as vague as our national identity when people are
shovelling sewage out of their basements rather than looking aloft at fireworks?
I
won’t remind you of the savagery of Mother Nature. I won’t add my voice to the
chorus of “This too shall pass.” Instead I will encourage you to celebrate
things that are very worthy of it, as an Albertan, as a Canadian, as a human
being. I will remind you of the good.
Of
the grinning firefighter carrying the little old lady through knee-deep water.
Of
the volunteers who keep coming, long past the expectation, to work in their neighbors’
devastated homes.
Of
Edmonton military, police, firefighters, rushing down the QE2 to come to the
aid of their beleaguered sister city.
Of
the people who opened their homes to complete strangers needing a place to
stay.
Of
students and teachers from Strathmore who, a day away from summer break, went
to Siksika to help the stricken.
Of
the people who donated clothing, food, or time to those who lost a little or
lost it all.
Of
the people who said, over and over, “At least we’re alive. Stuff can be
replaced.”
On
this Canada Day I’m proud of us. As we march further into the days that came
after, we need to remember this unity, this good. The clean-up and rebuilding
will be long and difficult, and possibly more demanding than the initial shock
of tragedy.
We
have two lives now, the one before and the one after. What we need to remember
is the unity we saw at the point where our days became divided. Where we stood
as one and we held a mud-streaked hand out to a brother or a sister.
I love
you today, Southern Alberta, for I have seen us all stand as one.
