All good things must come to an end, and now, so does our time in St. Paul. After 10 years, this will be my final edition of Around the Bend.
All good things must come to an end, and now, so does our time in St. Paul. After 10 years, this will be my final edition of Around the Bend.
I chose that as a column header back in 2007 as a cub reporter, thinking it spoke to a new chapter in coming to this town. I could never have foreseen at that time how long we would stay here, and how rooted my husband and I would become, buying our first home here, becoming parents, and finding friends and neighbours that would come to feel as close to us as family. I've shared all these experiences with you over the years, and I appreciate that so many of you took the time to read, or tell me when you enjoyed something I wrote.
But this column is not about me - it's about you. It's about a place that came to feel like home to me more than anywhere else I've lived. It's about a place where you can drive into total wilderness, surrounded by trees and swooping birds of prey, bears, or moose, a place where you can feel grounded in an ancient life and history, that has been here far before us, and will exist long after us.
It's about years rooted in a farming tradition, of 4-H children that are carrying on their parents and grandparents' legacy, the same ones that could teach a vegetarian Hindu girl from the city how to recognize a champion steer for its nice flanks and prime cuts or to breathe in deep to appreciate the sweet smell of silage.
It's about bleary-eyed but eager parents spending early Saturday mornings at a rink, drinking Tim Hortons coffee and watching their children play hockey, cheering themselves hoarse in a tradition of chilled camaraderie and a love of Canada's game.
It's about late summer nights, spent by a lake under a blanket of brilliant stars and meteor showers, the kids whispering secrets to each other while the adults swapped stories and peach schnapps by a campfire.
It's about putting up pink hearts in windows, a reminder to families that we will never forget their loss and pain of that dreary October day.
It's about people that prayed for my daughter when she was at her sickest, strangers that would send me messages to remind me that I wasn't alone and that no matter what, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
A kaleidoscope of scenes rush through my head each time I think of the past 10 years, flashes of being a newlywed, of my daughter first being placed in my arms, of my babies taking their first steps, of watching children I first saw as youngsters graduating and becoming parents themselves or of neighbourhood kids making themselves at home around my dinner table. There have been times I could see the future stretching into the distance, and in my mind's eye, I saw my own children graduate along with these lifetime friends.
How beautiful is it, I then realized, to have your children grow up in a small community, to be linked to everyone around them by a million strands of shared memories and laughter? If my children are ever called good kids, I know it is not simply because of me and my husband, but because of all the people that looked out for them, that cherished them, and gave them this amazing, close-knit environment in which to grow and flourish.
I have loved my time here with the St. Paul Journal and all the amazing staff that I have worked alongside over the years. This newspaper has been dear to me, and I hope it has a long future ahead and celebrates 100 years in 2024. But the time has come for me to start anew, learning and pushing myself in different ways.
Still, I couldn't help but think when one person said, “Congratulations - on to bigger and better things,&” that there may be bigger out there, but “better&” exists wherever good people want to create it, that “better&” exists right here. Our memories will keep St. Paul and our friends close to my heart, no matter where I go or what comes next, around the bend.
