Green: More Than a Colour
This week my wife, Amanda Buzzell, and I will travel back to Edmonton for the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation #ColoursOfCourage Gala.
The Gala and Courage Classic have raised more than $3 million in five years - supporting critical advancements at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. The Courage Gala is a celebration where everyone pauses to reflect on the truly important moments in life - moments where the human spirit shines and courage is encouraged.
At the gala and leading up, the Foundation has been asking to share our colours of courage. For me, this colour is GREEN.
Looking back, the biggest GREEN in my early life was down in Boston. At Fenway Park. The Red Sox were a big part of our life. My great great-uncle went to spring training to try out for the Sox. My grandmother, whom I wrote about here when she passed, was the biggest Sox fan you could know. My dad took me during a two-year stretch in 1987-1988 to more than 60 games on $6 military active-duty standing-room-only tickets. We'd get a sports bahr and a wahtered down Coke. Mustard and peanut butter sandwiches on the drive down from New Hampshire. The GREEN Monster was my home away from home. GREEN seats in the bleachers. Beautiful GREEN grass under the players' feet.
We moved away for my dad's United States Air Force assignment to Great Falls, Montana, and the colour green was never prominent there. That all changed when I started playing hockey a few years later in Killam, Alberta, Canada. There, I learned what small-town hard work was. Farm boys on the team and many, many weeknight bus trips to places like Red Deer, Innisfail, Sylvan Lake and Olds. Donning these wicked awesome GREEN jerseys,
Later on, with my move closer to Edmonton, the GREEN jerseys of Southside Athletic Club I wore with pride as we upset the St. Albert Raiders in the first round of Midget AAA playoffs. I cheered on the Edmonton Eskimos (GREEN and Gold) and drove past the UofA's GREEN and gold with dreams of going there some day - which I did for my Masters degree from 2011-2015.
So when the Humboldt Broncos bus crash happened last year the GREEN and gold of the Broncos hit something even closer. GREEN had always been told to me to be a colour of money, finances, banking, ambition, greed, jealousy, and wall street. But moreso I agree with this from Bourn Creative:
Green, the color of life, renewal, nature, and energy, is associated with meanings of growth, harmony, freshness, safety, fertility, and environment.
I will be wearing GREEN this weekend for the Gala for these many reasons. A celebration of life and renewal. The combination of both physical and mental health rehabilitation following tragedy. Following surgery. Following traumatic and otherwise difficult circumstances.
I hope if you read this you share your story of courage. After seeing several people who I have interacted with in life fight and lose a battle with mental health we must continue to see the courage needed to go on. Just the same way and courage I have seen others who battle the physical hurdles of organ transplants or those dealing with the physical and mental health hurdles in Humboldt and beyond.
Today we celebrated the life of Logan Boulet and the year after his gift of life to six others.
Green. Join me in conversation. Love. Health. More. Take care. And support Logan's legacy while you're at it.