No Dress Rehearsal, This is Our Life.

No dress rehearsal, this is our life.

Gord, you were ahead by a century.

Today, as I was ready to start my morning, I read the news of Gord Downie’s death, and I wept.

Normally a stickler for proper grammar, I’m sure this post will be full of run-on sentences and garbled thoughts.

Whenever I think Canadian music, I immediately think of Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip.  Whenever I hear a song by The Hip, I am hit with a wave of nostalgia.

It wasn’t just the gift of music Gord shared with the world that left a lasting impression on me (and countless others, no doubt), but it was the other gifts that made him such a legend.  Gord spoke out in support of Indigenous people and focused on cross-cultural education to support healing and recovery.

As The Hip was a huge part of my life as a teen, a person in my twenties, and now, I am excited that my own daughter, as young as she is, shares my love for their music.  What I am even more amazed by is how my eight year old ‘has been inspired and in awe of Gord’s work with reconciliation and indigenous affairs.  My daughter was talking to me about Gord Downie’s Secret Path.  We talk about residential schools and the history of First Nations people, since we live on Manitoulin Island, and Little One has many Anishnaabe friends. She wondered if any of our friends had ancestors/grandparents/family who were in residential schools. She was so shocked that between the early 1800s and 1996, over 150,000 Indigenous children were systematically taken from their families and sent to residential schools run by church organizations and funded by the Canadian government.

My little one was also shocked to discover that the children were not only taken and sent away from their families, but they were not permitted to speak their language or practice their culture. She is eight and lives in a time and place where she finds it hard to imagine things like that happening. It was hard to explain in terms an eight year old can understand.

Gord Downie, the legend not only because of his music, but because he had the gift to make people think, smile, create, reflect about life and the things that matter.

Gord made me realize that this is no dress rehearsal. This is our life.

Some of my favourite quotes of his can be found here.

This morning, when I read the news of Gord Downie’s death, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably, and struggled to understand what was happening.  I don’t recall ever weeping like this when any other celebrity (musician, actor, poet, author, etc) passed away.  Sure, I felt sad, but nothing so crushing like this.

Then I realized the connection. Gord was fighting brain cancer.  My aunt died from a very rare form of brain cancer last year. This was a trigger.

The world has lost a bright light, but Gord’s legacy will live on. It is not often someone can touch the lives of so many people the way he did.

No dress rehearsal, this is our life.