For the past week, as we all witnessed the climate apocalypse play out across the tiny screens in our hands and sucked back the smoke-heavy air that followed, I was imagining using this editorial space to somehow process the terror that came next.
The images of people stuck inside a freight train wrapped in a raging wildfire, and of evacuees fleeing their community by boat as their homes go up in flames behind them imprinted themselves on the inside of my eyes. I was stuck in devastation and couldn’t find much to say that hadn’t already been said, or screamed. I once again accepted the naivety of my hope that images of our world burning before our eyes, for yet another summer, would spur some kind of international emergency and commitment to making this hell, at best, slow. LOL!
And then on Monday, as we were putting together this week’s newspaper, one of the stories eclipsed, at least for a moment, this devastation, offering a testament to the resilience and strength of the Pontiac community when faced with unexplainable loss, and insurmountable grief.
As you’ll see in our story on page three of this paper, the Pontiac Lions Club raised nearly $100,000 for the wives and young children of Steve Morin and Charlie Frost, two Pontiac men, best friends, who died in a snowmobile accident this winter.
The day-long fundraiser event organized last month started as a simple need amongst club members to somehow show up for Steve and Charlie’s families as they navigated this massive loss. It evolved into a packed day of pickleball, a truck and car show, auctions and live music that brought together friends and family from across the Ottawa Valley to celebrate and honour these men, and hold close those they’ve left behind.
And this was not the first fundraiser organized in the wake of Steve and Charlie’s passing. In April, the local fire department organized a poker run for their wives, Tammie Bérard and Lauren Kluke, and their young boys, and this coming weekend, 100 per cent of the proceeds from a three-day ball tournament will also support the families.
I did not have the privilege of knowing Steve or Charlie. But what I’ve learned through conversations with their loved ones is that they were, each in their own way, kind, generous, and mischievous, real lovers of life and leaders in this community where they had grown up and were raising their families. They showed up for others, and they were beloved.
The money raised will no doubt be significant in supporting their boys as they find their footing in the world. But beyond this financial support, the success of these fundraisers is in their ability to show these boys, and the greater community, the special people that Charlie and Steve were. Their kids will grow up surrounded by people who knew and loved their fathers, and are committed to sharing that with them.
The way Charlie and Steve continue to bring people together, even after their passing, offers a reminder that in the Pontiac, this is the norm for how people take care of each other. Being a member of this kind of community is both a privilege and a call to duty. How are we to get by and stay strong in the face of so many forces we have no control over, if not by showing up for each other?
Thank you to Steve and Charlie, and their extended web of friends and family for reminding us of this, and of what can be accomplished when people organize, with neighbours, to support those with whom they share a small corner of the world.
