I was chatting with an old friend at a Terry Fox event last week. He told me he just heard the cutest thing. He was standing near a little boy who had finished his run when the boy exclaimed between breaths, "Wow, I'm so good at running, I should just run around Canada."
Now, that's Canadian courage.
The kind of courage that Terry Fox himself displayed when he dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic Ocean at the start of his iconic journey across Canada. Fox was once heard saying, "I remember promising myself that should I live, I would prove myself deserving of life." He dreamed that each Canadian would give $1 to Cancer research so that one day, a cure would be found.
Fox didn't make it across Canada, but a few months before he died, his dream was realized.
Canadians had donated over $24 million to the Marathon of Hope, the population at the time was 24 million.
The Marathon of Hope is and always was about more than cancer. It's about the little boy who now believes he can just run around Canada. Terry's courage is the part that people remember - the thing that makes him a hero.
Heroes aren't too rare a phenomenon in Canada. In fact, the nation is more like the planet Krypton than most may think.
Superman's creator was actually an average Canadian Joe ... Joe Shuster. I'm sure many remember that Historica moment on TV at the train station when the lady says " a hero in tights? It'll never fly." And the young man says, "Fly, no, but he can leap over tall buildings."
Then he hands a sketch of the Man of Steel.
Shuster moved to the United States and worked from there to sell his hero and start a comic book trend. Superman, however, was decidedly Canadian.
Canuck novelist Mordecai Richler said Superman's extraordinary strength, speed and superhuman powers hidden under a modest, even bland, alter ego makes him an archetypal Canadian personality.
The Man of Steel is a universal hero known as the champion of virtue completely content to take no credit for his deeds and instead live as a quiet and subtle man.
I like Canadian heroes. For some reason, they get their head on right and it stays that way. They see enough of reality to stay grounded, but dream big enough to defy odds. Maybe it's because they aren't chased everywhere by paparazzi and they rarely have to get restraining orders against 12 year-old girls and their mothers. Maybe it's because they are Canadians first, and heroes second.
Lucille Teasdale was Montreal born, and despite growing up in a working-class family in the 1930s, she was determined to go to medical school. She graduated at 26 and while interning decided she wanted to be a surgeon. Canada and the U.S. refused to admit her, and she later moved to France where she was accepted by two hospitals and licensed as a surgeon.
She married another doctor and moved to Uganda to start a hospital. She treated 13,000 patients throughout her career in Uganda. She worked through wars, AIDS epidemics and unimaginable carnage.
Teasdale contracted HIV in the 1980s, probably while operating on a soldier. She was given two years to live. She continued to perform surgeries in Uganda until 1993. She said simply, "If I didn't do it, the patients would die." When surgery became too difficult, she and her husband set up a foundation to guarantee the future of their hospital, and for the last two years of her life, Teasdale toured the world to raise funds for the foundation. The hospital is now one of the largest medical centres in Uganda.
Fox and Teasdale were both recipients of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian award. The order recognizes lifetime achievement and merit in service to Canada or humanity at large. There's a motto for order recipients - a member of the Order of Canada must desire a better country.
They prove not only that they are deserving of life, but also that life is worth desiring.
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