Just read an article about June Callwood in Toronto Life magazine. Then I saw that there's now a coin from the mint to honour Terry Fox.
What I love about these two people is that they let something affect them into a sincere course of action. Maybe that isn't the right word. What I mean is that their action was so bold and naked and had such high stakes. Hell, why not throw your heart on the line for something you care about. Easier said than done though. I deeply admire them both.
What I love about these two people is that they let something affect them into a sincere course of action. Maybe that isn't the right word. What I mean is that their action was so bold and naked and had such high stakes. Hell, why not throw your heart on the line for something you care about. Easier said than done though. I deeply admire them both.
June Callwood is dying. And she doesn't seem bothered by it. I love how she uses words like crappy to describe parts of her life, knows she's dying, but just keeps going on her daily business. It's messy, and it's perfection. And then there's Terry Fox. Here's an excerpt of an email I wrote my Dad on October 18, 2004, shortly after the CBC announced "The Greatest Canadian" showdown.
I don't mean to exclude sports figures entirely by any means, but while Don Cherry does do a lot of charity work, he is personally obnoxious. I would go for Tommy Douglas because he so completely predicted that in a few short generations, health care would be something that would be so important to the national psyche, the fabric of our being, even if it is imperfect. Pearson, yes, personified, and in fact created, the idea of the peacemaker.
But, as you know, I love the underdog.
On the list is a young man who had a dream to make something of a what other people would use as an excuse to give up and took it on, full throttle, silently suffering a lot of physical pain--before prosthetic technology had made it a slightly more feasible thing to do. And the most startling thing? He never finished.
There are peacemakers in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Haiti because of Lester B. Pearson. Young pregnant women in Vancouver's lower east side, Ronnie Hawkins and even Mom have access to better health care than they would otherwise because of Tommy Douglas. But there's a Terry Fox run to raise money for cancer research every year in places as far and near as China, South Africa, France and especially Canada because Terry Fox only made it to Thunder Bay.
He made it a lot farther.
Not a scientist, not a lawyer, not a statesman.
And I think one day, when the cure for cancer has been found (and I have to believe that), it will be because he dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic in St. John's, Newfoundland and started the Marathon of Hope.
*sniff, sniff* and that's my Celine Dion heart pounding moment for today.
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