A day-5 evacuation story

Image: Hope, Susan Norie

From Facebook

[Ken Gray – I don’t know Banu Tülümen’s but they tell a beautiful story admist so much uncertainty.]

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I don’t quite know how to describe these past five days.

There are stories everywhere. Some heartbreaking. Some heroic. Stories of loss and uncertainty, but also extraordinary stories of kindness, generosity and people simply showing up for one another.

Today, I sat on a bench looking out over the lake.

For a while, the sky had shown itself again. There was wind, which I knew wasn’t necessarily good news for the firefighters, but I realized how desperate I had become just to feel it, to see some blue above me.

And I thought about how much we take for granted.

A blue sky. Green forests. The lake. The hills around us. The orchards and vineyards and farms that are such a part of this place. The particular kind of Okanagan hospitality that makes this feel like home.

Five days ago, these were simply the things around me. Today, they felt precious.

As I sat there, I tried to imagine the firefighters somewhere beyond what I could see. The first responders. The emergency crews and volunteers. All those people working hour after hour while the rest of us wait, worry, watch and hope.

They are there protecting our homes, our communities and our landscape. But somehow, just knowing they are there also makes us feel a little safer when so much feels beyond our control.

And then I thought about everything I have witnessed these past few days: the offers of places to stay, food, help, transportation, a listening ear. Friends checking on friends. Neighbours helping neighbours. Strangers helping people they have never met.

In a world that can seem so chaotic, filled with war, hunger, disease and division, I sometimes wonder whether we have forgotten who we are.

These past five days have reminded me that we haven’t.

Times like this make us believe in humanity once again.

I don’t know what I will find when I am able to go home. I don’t know whether home will look or feel the same. None of us really knows what the days ahead will bring. And for some, we already know that going home will mean confronting heartbreaking loss.

But today, sitting on that bench and looking across the lake, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Hope.

We will get through this.

Things will not be the same. We know that.

But perhaps what comes next is up to all of us.

We can rebuild. We can heal. We can remember the people who stood beside us when we needed them. And perhaps we can remember not to take the blue sky, the green forests, our beautiful Okanagan or one another quite so much for granted.

Things will not be the same, for sure.

But together, we can make it better than ever.

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