In the fall of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic still kept us at bay, my friends and I began playing very friendly — and highly uncoordinated — games of soccer at a nearby elementary school.
Though the months were quickly getting rainier and darker by the day, we played despite the weather. At one particular game, my wife lost her engagement ring while playing. We searched as a group, but quickly realized we were no match for the ever-darkening night.
Like many neighbourhoods and buildings and living spaces, our neighbourhood kept a friendly Facebook page to keep each other informed about free bottles, garage sales, runaway dogs and nearly anything you can think of.
I posted an update to the page, explaining what had happened in hopes folks would keep their eyes peeled. In just a few hours, a nice man said he would go on the weekend with a metal detector and that he had a spare that I could borrow to help look
As we scanned the field carefully with the detectors, another man ran up the road with a detector of his own and said he saw us looking and had some spare time to help. A few minutes later, children and other neighbours stopped by and asked what we were looking for — all of them combed through the grassy lot, whether for 15 minutes or for several hours.
Now I’d love to say that we found the ring, but sadly we didn’t.
But the gratitude I had for the community left an impeccable mark on what kind of community Squamish can be. I learned just how gracious, kind and understanding anyone can be when they see someone else in a time of need.
Every four years, the residents of Squamish get to put forth their ballots for our mayor and council. Leading up to voting day, there is, of course, a lot of debate. Some I would describe as healthy and some I would describe as nasty.
After voting day, however, the choice is over. Collectively, we have decided that the winners will be our leaders for at least four years, even if we didn’t actually vote for those candidates.
When I imagine what kind of community we can be, it’s easy for me to have some recency bias about our community during campaign season. But, I’ve experienced firsthand the kindness that has been shown to me over the years.
Now that the campaign season is actually over, I ask: what kind of community do we want to be?
Do we want to be the type of community that bickers, shakes our heads and disagrees for the next four years? Or, do we want to show each other empathy and compassion even among our disagreements?
I know what kind of community I want Squamish to be as we head into the future.
What do you want?
