To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
16
May
2018
I was driving north, up the main highway. As I came down the hill into town, traffic slowed to a standstill. The truck ahead of me turned on its four-way flashers.
Something was happening, but I couldn’t see what.
I peered through the gap between the vehicles ahead of me.
And I saw a woman, walking backwards across the four lanes of traffic, beckoning to something or someone with her hands, encouraging them to come on.
Then I saw what she was encouraging. A pair of geese. Canada geese. Big birds. When they spread their wings and hiss, they can be terrifying.
But these two waddled along following the woman. And right behind them came a pair of goslings, balls of fluff on toothpick legs.
And finally, behind them all, came a man pushing a bicycle, making sure no one got left behind. Or run over.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: trust, Geese, parables
9
My wife would probably be dead by now, if it weren’t for blood donors.
I can’t prove that assertion, of course. It’s almost impossible to prove that something didn’t happen, that could have happened. Safety regulations can argue that traffic controls reduce the total number of accidents; they can never claim that they prevented a specific driver from having an accident.
But consider the facts.
Ten years ago, my wife was diagnosed with leukemia. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, to be precise. In those ten years, she’s had seven different chemotherapies. Six have failed; her white cell counts came down, for a while, but they wouldn’t stay down.
Here’s a vastly oversimplified explanation of a very complicated process....
Tags: blood donors, leukemia, immuno-globulin, plasma
6
Flooding has hit British Columbia again. News reports overflow with stories of property owners sandbagging their homes, their farms, their businesses. Oliver, Kaleden, Tulameen, Cawston, Cache Creek -- the chorus of afflicted communities swells day by day.
Mudslides close highways. Culverts wash out. Hundreds of homes are ordered evacuated.
And I haven’t even heard about what might be happening farther east, in the Kootenays. Or farther north, along Highway 16.
I heard a politician pontificate, “It’s a one-in-70-year event.”
Really? Weren’t we saying the same thing during last year’s floods?
Connect the dots, people! Connect the dots!
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: climate change, floods, global warming, sub-divisions
2
Sixteen members of a hockey team dead in a bus crash in northern Saskatchewan. Ten strangers killed on a sidewalk in Toronto. My mind reels. How do the survivors, the families, the friends and lovers, get their minds, their emotions, around these and countless other tragedies?
A caveat -- I write this column as a personal expression.
What do you say to someone who has just experienced a massive loss? What do you do?
Some responses are less than helpful.
The students at Marjorie Stoneham Douglas high school in Florida rightly told President Trump to keep his meaningless “thoughts and prayers” – instead, to do something about gun violence.
That doesn’t mean you can’t offer prayers, or that you can’t feel sympathy. Given a choice between someone offering prayers, and someone NOT offering prayers, I would certainly choose the former. But platitudes are too often a way of avoiding getting involved. And you have to get involved. Even at some personal pain.
Tags: Losses, helping