Life Lessons

Once again, it is New Brunswick teen Rebecca Schofield, who has got me back to the keyboard.  I first wrote about Becca in February. She is dying of brain cancer. Instead of thinking only of herself, she launched a campaign asking people to perform random acts of kindness. She loves it when people share their good deeds, using #beccatoldmeto. I was very happy tonight to see an item about her on CBC's The National. Tomorrow in New Brunswick it is Becca Schofield day! Click here to learn more about Becca and to hear part of her interview.

"To know that I get this day and it's not just my day, it's a day to celebrate the people that we can be and the people that we should be — it just warms my heart to know that we have a day like that where we can come together as a community."

Becca's interview reminds me of fifty year old MP Arnold Chan, who died yesterday. I was moved when CBC radio played a part of his last speech in the House of Commons. In it he appealed to all of us, to be our best selves.

"I would ask Canadians to give heart to their democracy; that they treasure it, revere it," Chan said. "Of course I would ask them in the most basic of things, to cast their ballot, but for me it is much more than that. I ask them for their civic engagement, regardless of what it actually may mean, whether it is going out and coaching a soccer team, whether it is helping someone at a food bank, and for me it can be even something simpler than that...

"It is thanking our Tim Hortons server. It is giving way to someone on the road. It is saying thanks.

"It is the small things that we collectively do, from my perspective, that make a great society, and fundamentally to me that is ultimately what it means to be a Canadian."

Click here to learn more about Arnold Chan and to hear his speech.

So tomorrow, on Becca Schofield Day and every day, let us remember the lessons from these two remarkable Canadians.