My day off in Port Hawkesbury was awesome. The sun was shining, the wind was brisk, and our spirits were high. Cam and I scurried about taking photos around the town. It was fresh and relaxing and a nice change of pace.
On Sunday we set up at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Center. That is one incredible facility!!! I could have just moved in...it had a great fitness center, a fabulous rink, arts and crafts rooms, meeting space, and much more!
While there we met a number of survivors, and families of survivors. One woman shared her incredible story with us. She was so calm and peaceful as she explained to us that she had a near-death experience with cancer. As she went into detail describing the feeling of being lifted out of her body by a warm golden glow, and looking down on her dying body and grieving family. She said she felt so safe and warm and was put at such ease that she said to God "It's okay. I'm not scared anymore. You can take me if you want, but I'm ready to fight to live". That was five years ago and she looks fabulous today. Her story left us all speechless and moved to tears. How do you respond to something like that?! We just couldn't find the words...
Later that day we packed up to head off to Sydney. We planned to stop in Whycocomagh for lunch. Cap's boyfriend was heading back to Halifax from Sydney, as his band was playing in the ECMAS. We stopped at a little greasy spoon on the side of the highway and had our lunch. We made our way back to the bus only to find two women waiting for us. It turns out that they are the sister and mother of the man from the car wash in Port Hawkesbury. They saw our bus and really wanted to meet us. We had a great chat with them and they promised to come out and see us again when we come back to Cape Breton in August. Cam and I went out to take a few pictures before leaving and ended up meeting up with an elderly gentleman who approached us only to make a donation for the cause. He revealed that he had lost six people in his family to cancer. We couldn't believe that at one little unscheduled stop we could experience such support.
In Sydney we arrived at our hotel to find it packed full of ECMA go-ers. I have to say that arriving to find musicians and groupies was a welcome change from the hockey teams during our stay in Port Hawksbury! Unfortunately the hotel itself was a bit of a dud. The place wasn't particularly clean (the rooms weren't too bad, but everything else was awful). The front desk staff were not very helpful (very strange for Cape Breton!), and there were serious issues with the wireless internet connection. It was a bit frustrating, so hopefully we won't be staying there again when we return to Sydney.
Our brief visit to Cape Breton left us wanting more. We can't wait to return in August!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment