Remembering Jack Layton

   
Jack Layton died yesterday. And Canada is heartbroken.

For the uninitiated, Jack Layton was the need of the federal NDP party (see CBC interview with him here). He was the man who took it from obscurity on the national scene to being the official Opposition in the last election. But he was more than that. Much more.

I got up yesterday to the news and spent the day crying every time I turned on the TV, read a newspaper or talked about it. Everyone is devastated, both the people who are NDP supporters and, oddly, refreshingly and wonderfully, people who aren't. I watched an interview with his Chief of Staff yesterday who said she had read a letter to him on Saturday that said something like "you drive me crazy, I disagree with everything you say, but we need you. Please come back."

And that's it exactly. This country needed Jack. We needed his optimism, his hopefulness, his enthusiasm and his joy. And we needed the way he reminded us all of what makes Canada great. That we are human and humane, compassionate and helpful. And that there is more to being a great country than a balanced budget and fear. He challenged us all to do better and did so in a way that made us want to do it. He was a much-needed balance in Ottawa.

In one of the things that has amazed me in the last couple of days, is the outpouring of love and grief that is so personal. For a politician. It is not just with us regular citizens, but also with the media and his colleagues on Parliament Hill. Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, Jack's complete opposite in terms of politics, seemed genuinely shaken when speaking yesterday and called Jack Layton friend.

Jack Layton left a letter to Canadians, a beautiful letter, one that I hope will inspire us all to work together in a positive way to honor his legacy. In it, he said

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

Thank you, Jack.
    
 
 From The Toronto Star
     

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weight Gain and Biologics: The Battle of the Pudge

Image
The Seated View has moved .  I am still bringing you the information and support you need to live a better life with RA and chronic illness, just on another site. I'd love for you to visit my new website ! - Lene If you want to leave a comment or question about weight gain, RA, and Biologics and are looking for answers or feedback, please jump to this post on my new site . It has the capability for direct replies, this site does not. You can also reach me at leneATyourlifewithraDOTcom. - Thanks, Lene I’ve known from the beginning that Biologics can affect your weight. When I was on Enbrel, I couldn’t keep weight on, and looked anorexic despite eating like a horse. When I switched to Humira, I started gaining weight. I, who had never before spent much time past a size 6, became a 10. After years of being   literally skin and bones, it suited me just fine.  And then the gaining continued, until finally settling around a weight that requires a 16 pant. Never having been thi
Read more

Real RA: It's Not Just About the Jar

    The drug commercials like to show couples walking on the beach with a dog (it's always a beach with a dog), but real RA is not like that. The image of remission is a return to sparkling health with no lasting effects, but real RA is not like that. This is the first in new series of posts about the ways RA affects your life, the unvarnished version.   Last week, Kelly over at RA Warrior tweeted a link to a post about the silly things people with RA say . It’s a brilliant list of the overly optimistic things that come out of our mouths, such as committing to being somewhere early in the day (impossible because it takes a while to get going when you have RA) or the "me do it" ridiculousness that inevitably brings about a flare in symptoms. Opening jars - or rather, the inability to do so - is often mentioned as the ultimate example in frustration, smacking into your limits and plain humiliation. For Kelly, it's not a jar, it's a set of heavy blinds.
Read more

Farber’s Disease: Could Your Child’s Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Be Misdiagnosed?

Image
Joint inflammation or contractures. Nodules (small lumps under the skin or in other tissues). A weakened or hoarse voice. Children with these symptoms may have been diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) or other types of juvenile arthritis . But do they actually have JIA or do they have Farber’s disease? An equine digression When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. This is an adage in the medical world that encourages doctors to not wander off exploring rare and esoteric reasons for a patient’s symptoms. Because most of the time, that hoof beat of a rash likely isn’t the plague, the joint pain more likely a type of arthritis than the bends (especially if the person has never scuba dived) and you get the picture. But once in a while, it actually is a zebra. And even if it’s first identified as a horse, eventually, the stripes come through. It took five years of my parents running around to different doctors before one finally recognized that I had
Read more