The Gift: The Guy From Campbell River

When in Campbell River working, I met a nice young guy who showed me a safety sticker he had designed for a family who had a child with autism. It was a cool sticker that presented emergency information to emergency personnel how to best support the child in an emergency. It was done with care and with tact and with an amazing amount of discretion. I was impressed.

From there I told him my story of having my wheelchair being stolen from the gate of the airplane twice now, most recently a couple weeks ago when landing in Vancouver. He mentioned that he could make stickers for my chair that could, perhaps, help. The next day he came in with a set of three. I was thrilled, anything to make me feel safer leaving my chair and getting on the plane.

We put it on for our flight to Edmonton and they were on, of course, our flight home.

We put one on each side of the chair and one down the inside back of the chair.

That was the one that really stood out when the chair was folded. No problem with either flight. The back sticker is likely not going to last long because of the friction, or whatever, that is caused by my pushing myself, it’s slowly loosening, but it doesn’t matter. I have an idea now.

This guy, with no connection to me at all, simply attending the conference, had the generosity to make these for me, he refused payment of any kind, he just did it because he could, and, as he approached it, why wouldn’t he. Me, I saw it differently, as a huge gift.

Not just of the stickers, but of understanding, caring and action. Lots of people are good at the first two but not so good at the third. This guy, he had it down.

So thanks guy from Campbell River, you made my flight home so much better, I felt so much safer … and ‘safer’ is maybe the biggest gift you can give anyone.