Tag Archives: hero

Everyday Hero

When I think of a real life hero, the first person that always comes to mind is Terry Fox. This young man ran a marathon a day on one leg to raise money for cancer research. He wanted to raise a dollar for every Canadian, and although his Marathon of Hope was never completed it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. He attempted something extraordinary (‘EXTRA’ ordinary) for a selfless reason. He is one of my heroes.

Recently, a family member had to perform lifesaving actions on a man that was unconscious and not breathing. It was a rather traumatic experience, and when fire crews and paramedics arrived, they all said the team that worked on this man did a great job. Amazing. Kudos to them all. Then yesterday they learned that the person later died in the hospital. That doesn’t change the fact that they all did a great job, but it was devastating news to get.

This got me thinking about heroism. We tie so much of heroic acts to the outcome of events, not to the act itself. Isn’t that interesting. This isn’t always the case, and I think the pandemic highlighted this. We started to give praise to nurses and other frontline workers. We showed greater respect and admiration for people who work in service of others.

And so now I think more of the silent heroes. The teachers who are the only significant adults in a child’s life. The single parent that sacrifices personal wishes to chauffeur multiple kids to all their expensive activities. The volunteer that brings meals to a seniors. The older child who steps in and stops a kid from being bullied. And the nurses, 911 operators, firefighters, lifeguards, and doctors who do everything they can to save a life… heroes all, whether or not they save the person. It’s not the result, but their service that’s makes them an everyday hero.

Sad irony

There is a truck convoy in Ottawa and thousands of people are protesting vaccine and mask mandates. I’ll be generous and say there are 10,000 people there protesting. That’s 0.026% of the population not 2.6%, not .26%, 0.026%. Double that if you consider people who wanted to join them, you are still just over 0.05% of the population.

This small but loud group has a right to peacefully protest, they don’t deserve so much attention. I have been bypassing the news about them in my feed, but I did see one thing that was really pathetic. One of the things some protesters did was to put signs on a Terry Fox statue. Terry Fox, a Canadian hero who:

A) Was immunocompromised and might have been an example of the kind of person who we are trying to protect with these restrictions, because he might have had a vaccine exemption.

B) Raised millions of dollars for medical research.

Wow. Talk about missing the point.

I hope the small unvaccinated population in Ottawa end their peaceful protest without harming anyone or damaging any property, and they don’t end up taking too much more of our attention.

And while I’m at it, thank you to everyone who understands that these (temporary) mandates and restrictions are to help protect our community, and for doing your part. You have my appreciation, and my attention.