The first time, and one of a few times since, that I shed a tear over somebody I didn’t know personally, was the day I learned Terry Fox had died.
I was in high school the year of his Marathon of Hope. He was a hero to many of us. Shortly after Terry was forced to end his run, I wrote something about him for my high school newspaper. I remember referring to a commemorative telethon which raised (I think) $9 million for cancer research as Canadians coming together from coast to coast to shake a $9 million fist in the face of a killer.
This remarkable film produced by the Marathon of Hope brought back all those feelings and then layered on more recent feelings with the voice of Gord Downie, who battled the same form of cancer as my wife, Marg. I’m no longer mourning someone I didn’t know, but somebody I loved deeply.
The killer is still there. For years I worked across the street from Banting House. In that house there is a little bedroom where a guy got up in the middle of the night to write down an idea. That idea led to a treatment that saved millions of lives and generations who otherwise would not have been born. Wouldn’t it be something if a breakthrough of a similar magnitude were to occur again in Canada? Imagine.