Dan Remembers the Magic
Freedom Convoy united 'those who suffered with those who cared.'
The post in the clickable box below helps us peek inside the Freedom Convoy’s magic. Writer Dan Freeman reminds us that COVID’s effect on our lives wasn’t fleeting. Rather, “weeks and months and years passed,” yet things failed to return to normal:
The truckers, says Dan, broke the spell. They “appeared with the force of a thousand chariots charging into battle,” and inspired tens of thousands of Canadians to travel to Parliament’s doorstep where, he writes, people delighted in each other’s company. These people
communed without hesitation or stigma and just like that, the myth of the 6 foot bubble, magic masks and single direction grocery isles vanished…Fear was vanquished and love and hope were superspreading across the country.
…The single most important act for everyone was simply touching each other as though to reach through the fiction and verify the moment - transferring hope and love and compassion. Hand holding, hugging, dancing in the street was the most ordinary thing - 6 feet be damned. [bold added]
Here are a couple more lines from Dan:
The Trucker’s Freedom Convoy…pulled our country back from the brink. It gave us hope and purpose and it united those who suffered with those who cared. [bold added]
That last thought is important. Teenage girls and boys, mothers, entire families wrote the truckers multi-page letters in which they poured out their palpitating hearts. Every day on those frosty streets of Ottawa, people told their stories. They brought the truckers their pain.
These people had felt isolated and alone for too long.
Read The Day That Freedom Reigned in full here
He's right and expresses well the great uplifting many of us felt upon hearing a trucker's air horn. Yet to this day the Covid piper's flute still leads the parade, a following that just won't quit. Because we now have all our eggs in a government basket, it was inevitable that dictatorial government was what we'd get. When Mr Freeman writes of the fate suffered by the 'tall poppies' of the truckers protest it is easy to see why so few people have the strength to stand up tall. It reminds me of the Jefferson quote, "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure." And when I thought clearly of the quote's implication, I understood that inevitably the first blood spilled will be that of the few patriot that start a rebellion. Regrettably, until we outnumber the tyrants, that will not change.
My heart was filled up when I found 'Thank you Truckers!' From my humble perspective this is the most important story of our generation, and that's not because there aren't very serious problems and attrocities across the world that deserve our attention, but because of the power of this story and every smaller story that emerges from it - that has the power to change the way we treat each other and that will affect everything else.
We have to keep telling this story, yes, more than that we have to write it, we have to take our role in it and be the change we need in our world.
This part of it, searching down the truth, the ups and downs, bringing attention to our heroes and exposing the villains is not just important for the historical record, it's the hope and inspirstion we need to rise to the occasion.
Thank you so much Donna for your writing and coverage of the convoy.