The Best Feeling

Vibrant love, burning bright amidst the rubble of two lost careers.

Part 1: It Was Horrible

Heather, Dan & Rich. Photo taken in Ottawa and supplied by them.

One of the things Dan's wife delivered to him during her Ottawa visit was a fresh supply of insulin. He's been a diabetic since age five, and this was his second shipment since leaving home. He shakes his head. The only thing he wanted, he says, was for someone from the government "to talk to us. We were there for a reason. We just wanted to be heard."

Instead, politicians ignored and insulted them. While the media smeared them. "It was sickening," says Dan,

When you see the media just twisting everything, the way they distorted everything. Basically, they didn't tell a bit of truth.

That put a big dent in my spirits. I was naive, and when you start to see it, it's all coming at you at once. The world that you've trusted all this time. Things get to you, and some days it’s super hard.

Partly as a result of what he's endured over the past few years, Dan says, "I’ve become a Christian. I always did believe in God, but I never was baptized, and I never studied it much. But now, I strongly believe in God because I think he was there for me."

Both he and his wife lost their careers. Neither of them has returned to the workplaces from which they were banished for refusing a medical procedure. In November 2022, nine months after the end of the Freedom Convoy protest, Dan was invited to return. But only if he agreed to take whatever vaccines might be required in the future. He declined.

He and Heather have each worked at a few jobs since then. Their economic future is considerably less certain than it once was. "You know," he says quietly, "you just have to forgive everybody."

Amid the devastation and disruption of the pandemic years, Dan’s memories of Ottawa continue to burn brightly. He describes a gentleman who "came by and fed us every night. He had little wraps. He had bananas, apples, oranges. Little treats that his mother baked that day."

At one point, Rich gave this man two hundred dollars. He told him, "This is a thank you. This isn’t free for you, and we’re getting donations so we want to give it back." Dan continues,

People were giving us all this money and we weren’t just taking it and hoarding it. It was that whole atmosphere, a big circle. It just kept going around.

It was truly, honestly, the best feeling in life that you can ever experience. The love was just so vibrant.