So, at the height of the panic grocery buying that occurred this last week, one person was observed to be buying 30 liters of milk.
Now I would like to think that they were buying for their whole neighbourhood or even for their large group of friends, but given the level of panic happening, I doubt that perspective.
Their behavior is all the more perplexing given that we have a creamery in Terrace that supplies our dairy products.
What is poignant about that person’s decision to hoard milk is the small family I met on the weekend.
As I stood in the grocery store, looking at empty dairy shelves and almost empty vegetable shelves, a young mother with her three small children arrived. The baby was in the cart, the two little ones so small that they were clinging to their mom’s coat. She stood looking at all the empty shelves and then turned away with tears as she led her little family out of the store.
How do you think she is coping right now? How is she managing to feed her family healthy foods right now?
I can only hope that the person who bought those 30 liters of milk made good use of them, letting none of them spoil.
I moved to the valley 13 years ago and I found the people to be such a welcome relief to my experience of living in a large metropolitan city where fights regularly would break out on the subway trains for the last seat available.
What I witnessed of the people of this valley was an open-hearted willingness to step forward and help anyone who needed help, anyone who was struggling. I felt that I had entered a world where the best of humanity was living. Yes, there were differences but balance and respect were valued.
We now live in very tough times where uncertainty is ever-present, unrelenting, and sitting right at all our doorsteps. It is so easy in times like this, particularly when we are feeling threatened at the very core of our own personal security, to put aside our humanity, to stop thinking about the others we share this place with, to think only of our own immediate needs.
Is this who we now are, people of the Bulkley Valley?
I have always seen the Bulkley Valley, indeed this whole beautiful northwestern area of BC, as leaders. Leaders showing by example what it means to live in a community where everyone takes care of everyone else, where everyone is mindful as to how their decisions affect others, where everyone works hard to bring out the best in the community.
This, is who we are, people of the Bulkley Valley.
Patou Lehoux
Telkwa