Gorgeous.

It is her one word response to the photo I have sent, a quick pic snapped and texted to her while she is in Germany with her father celebrating the end of her high school years and the start of a new adventure: adulthood.

I have forced a friend to stop at the spot with me in the early evening, and as the setting sun beams down they capture the image. And even though it isn’t finished yet, and the rainbow crosswalk is at that point only half-painted, I know I must send it to my daughter because it reflects something we have discussed more than once.

When my daughter was in Grade 10, she informed me she was a cofounder in her school GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliance. I didn’t even know what a GSA was at that time, but she brought me up to speed quickly as her school had started the very first GSA in Fort McMurray history. For the next year, it was a significant part of her life, and when she decided to finish her high school years in Calgary she continued her involvement in the GSA at her new school.

What I learned through my daughter was that the acceptance of people identifying as LGBTQ was not quite as much of a given as I thought it was; she shared with me that many of her fellow students in the GSA had revealed they lived in fear of revealing this aspect of themselves as they were in family situations where it would not be accepted.

One of the things my daughter also identified was the lack of visible support in our community for people who identify as LGBTQ; she said the story of the pride flag being burned in a parking lot during the last attempt at a local pride event was legendary among youth and seen as indicative of how this community feels about LGBTQ people and issues.

It was for this reason she felt the GSA was critical, and I agreed with her once she began breaking it all down for me. She not only encouraged me but asked me to write about the need for GSAs, and we both found ourselves astonished at some of the responses my work received (like those who claimed the GSAs were “mostly for the parents”, a laughable notion if there ever was one as most parents were similar to me and had no clue what a GSA was) and those who suggested there was no reason LGBTQ people, particularly youth, should feel vulnerable in our community.

Well, no reason except for that time when somebody decided to burn a pride flag when LGBTQ individuals were just steps away. Or the times when LGBTQ people were physically assaulted or threatened with physical violence based solely on this aspect of their persons. Or the times when they felt unsafe, targeted, unsupported and unaccepted.

The lack of visible support for LGBTQ people was indeed troubling. It is intriguing to me that it is really the youth of this community who led the breakthrough in recent years through the formation of school GSAs, and in recent months we have seen a resurgence in the local Pride movement.

And on Saturday evening, as the sun began to set, I had my photo taken in front of a rainbow crosswalk in downtown Fort McMurray, and sent it off to my daughter who might have grown up and away from this place, but for whom this will always be her home town.

Gorgeous.

That was her simple reply of a vibrant rainbow crosswalk that says, with great simplicity, that this community is accepting. Welcoming. And embracing of people from all walks of life and all demographics, all ages, ethnicities and sexual orientations.

One of the comments I first read on the crosswalk was a question as to *why* there needs to be one. My daughter’s experience in the GSA is why. It is because there are vulnerable youth in our community who do not feel accepted. It is because they need a visible sign that there is room for them in our community, and that we not only accept but celebrate all people.

The more people decrying the rainbow crosswalk, the more powerful the indication that it is needed. The statistics are very, very clear; LGBTQ youth are significantly more likely to attempt to take their own lives. If we can pursue some simple courses of action – like a few cans of paint on a rainbow crosswalk – to show they are supported, then I would suggest we have a moral responsibility to do so. If we have kids in our community who feel they are not accepted by those close to them, then we must show them they ARE accepted by this community as a whole, and what could be more visible than a brightly coloured crosswalk?

And it IS gorgeous, because who could ever think a rainbow anything less than beautiful? And almost a beautiful as the people in this community, all of those who identify as LGBTQ and all of those who don’t; really all of those who come together to build a strong, powerful community founded on acceptance and kindness.

At the end of August, Fort McMurray will see a Pride event celebrated. It is long overdue in my opinion, and I suspect my daughter would feel the same way. I wish she were here for it, but she will be instead be moving on to the next phase in her life and moving into her university residence. I know, though, how proud she will be of this community and all the people who have come together to support each other in initiatives like Pride; and I know that when she visits she will likely want a photo with the rainbow crosswalk to share with her friends to show them that her little city in northern Alberta gets it.

Fundamentally, aren’t communities built on diversity, inclusion and acceptance? Isn’t that truly the core of being Canadian? And don’t we find significant pride in how our citizens came from all over the world to found this nation, and their gender, age, ethnicity, religious belief and country of origin mattered little as long as they wanted to be part of the communities we are building?

If a brightly coloured sidewalk on a downtown street enables just one kid in this community to feel accepted, welcomed and encouraged, then I would happily paint the crosswalk myself to make that happen. I think most of us, even the ones with any reservations about the “need” for such a crosswalk, would do the same; because in the end if it helps one kid then we have become part of the village we always talk about being needed to raise a child.

Fort McMurray, we are that village. Our children – whatever their orientation – are our collective future. How they feel about this community and the adults that inhabit it will be based on how we shape this community for them, and if we want our children to show kindness, love and acceptance then we would be wise to model this behaviour for them.

And if modelling it means one single solitary bright rainbow crosswalk, then I would suggest it might be something we might all want to support to ensure the youth in our community know that Fort McMurray is their home, and they belong here. Because to do any less – to allow them to grow up thinking this community does not accept them – not only weakens them, it weakens us.

And that is why when I saw that rainbow crosswalk with the sun beaming down on it, I smiled; because I knew it would have meaning for my daughter and the thousands of others kids growing up in this town who need to know this community supports and accepts them, no matter who they are or who they love.

Love is love is love; and sometimes all one needs to be reminded of it is to see a rainbow, whether high in the sky or under your feet, lifting you up as you feel the strength of your community beneath you. Fort McMurray, I am always proud of you; this week I am prouder than ever as I see us supporting vulnerable youth in our community through a visible symbol of our acceptance.

And yes.

It IS gorgeous.

When I first arrived in Fort McMurray 17 years ago, the real boom hadn’t even quite yet begun. You could feel the simmering of it, like that moment when a pot on the stove is just beginning to boil with the tiniest of bubbles breaking the surface. But just like that pot, when the heat was turned higher with rocketing oil prices, the simmer became a full-on boil, with the occasional boil-over as a city not quite ready for a boom in population struggled with infrastructure deficits and the woes that accompany a fast injection of people and money. We spent fast and we spent hard, both on a governmental and personal level, as evidenced by recent stories on the amount of debt incurred by residents of the region.

And then, just like a pot whisked off the stove, the boil stopped. Oil prices began dropping, and the bubbling began to lessen…and now it is back to a simmer again and the odds of a full boil – those days of tremendous boom based on expectations and predictions of $200/barrel of oil – seem unlikely to surface again.

The boom-bust nature of resource based towns is well understood; from the era of gold mining to oil drilling, this aspect of communities built on a sole-industry has never really changed. I have now lived in two such places, one based on oil and one based on gold, and one of the most remarkable things about them has always been their flexibility and ability to adapt to ever-changing economic situations, knowing the tide will ebb and flow as it does with a resource.

I had always thought this true for Fort McMurray as well, but this most recent downturn in the economy has me deeply worried, as something I had always before discounted as a factor in our get ‘er done, pioneer and maverick attitude has taken firm root: entitlement.

I hate that word, you know. I have in fact fought against it, as there was no way I could acknowledge that I or the members of my beloved community would ever or could ever be “entitled”, so spoiled that we have come to expect the times of boom to never end and become disconnected from the nature of a resource based economy.

But entitlement is something I can no longer ignore. Fort McMurray, once the home of a champagne budget and accompanying champagne tastes, now finds itself with a beer budget and an unquenched thirst for champagne.

The economic realities have undoubtedly changed; you can sense it in every corner, and that was before the fire in 2016 that swept through an already economically challenged region and took yet another savage punch at it.

Once I was very secure in our resiliency; not just in our ability to withstand the blows but to adapt to the changes with ease. This time, though, I see us struggling as we try to balance our wants with our needs, and find our champagne tastes challenged by the beer budget.

We were once the home of high disposable incomes, but with the economic changes we have seen diminished overtime, bonuses and wages. We have seen job losses, project delays and cancellations and people leaving. But still, on some level, we both yearn and expect the Fort McMurray of yesterday.

Do you know how resource based communities survive? Because they can adapt. They understand that good times (and bad times) can spin on a dime and that the bright days of yesterday can give way to dark days of tomorrow, and vice versa. The communities that understand this withstand the vagaries of a resource economy; those that fail to understand it will eventually fall.

I think we got complacent about the whole boom thing. And when I say “we”, I don’t mean “just you”. I mean me, too. After all, I invested all I have in this community, bought a house, raised a child here and built my life in a place where it can all go bust on a moment’s notice. I don’t regret a moment of that, but never did it occur to me that I could lose tens of thousands of dollars in home equity; never did I think I would wonder and worry about our economic future. It just seemed like the good days of the economy would never end, and then, of course, they did.

And now, things are different. If we want to have local shops and services then we bloody well better support them or they will disappear. If we want sustainability then we have to recognize we may need to give up some of our “wants” in order to achieve our actual needs – and on occasion that may sting. And we need to realize that some of the changes headed our way, like Bill 21/Bill 8, have the potential to forever alter our region.

I fear that we have not yet shed the champagne tastes we developed during the boom, and yet we have now encountered the beer budget of the bust. This discrepancy is the real risk to our community, and if we cannot counter it then we will face a real challenge: our inability to adapt to the bust end of the cycle.

There are hard decisions ahead. We are heading into a municipal election, and this next government will be faced with making choices that will affect lives and which will not always be popular because they will require adaptation to a new reality in which the wants must be brought into line with the fiscal realities.

So what do we need to do to make it through this and come out even stronger? I would suggest the following:

• Accept that which we cannot change and instead seek ways to adapt to it
• Ask why we are still doing things certain ways and if it continues to make sense to do it that way
• Stop countering every proposed change with a response that reeks of “but we have always done it this way”
• Understand the difference between wants and needs
• Recognize that once we were able to indulge in our wants, but that now needs must take precedence
• Know that this will not always be easy and may in fact hurt on occasion
• Support those in this community who fill the needs, like local social profit organizations
• Reconsider complaints that are based on “the way it used to be” and acknowledge that things are not the same and that things are likely to keep changing
• Be willing to change
• Be grateful

Yes, be grateful. Many communities will never, ever experience the kind of economic exuberance we have. We have so many things for which to be grateful; to now find ourselves whinging about things changing doesn’t seem exactly grateful and instead seems, just a bit, entitled.

I would suggest there are few people in this region more optimistic about the future than I; I have great confidence in our people and in our nature as most of us came here in search of a better life. Few of us came here with much more than our ambition, our commitment and our work ethic, and through hard work we have established our lives in this community. I have always likened us to the pioneers who originally settled the prairie provinces, doing so through sheer determination and an incredibly plucky attitude when facing challenges.

We face a new challenge. We face changed, and changing, economic times. If we are obstinate and refuse to change with them, clinging to our champagne tastes as the beer budget descends, we will find ourselves not only struggling, but deeply unhappy. But if we recognize the changes, and understand that beer is pretty damn good and champagne *might* be over-rated, we will be just fine. It will require us to work together, support each other and remember that what we need to achieve in the end is a functional community.

It’s time to put away the high-end bubbly and embrace the beer instead; after all, we are in this for the long haul, so we may as well have a few drinks – ones within our budget – along the way.

For several weeks I have been struggling with writing about this topic. Perhaps it is because it is far, far too close to me and my struggles go far deeper than trying to find the words to chronicle it. Perhaps it is because it is difficult to find the words at times when our emotions are so tangled.

As some readers know, I am in need of a corneal transplant. And this summer is likely to be the time when it will happen, as my name now hovers at the top of the waitlist, waiting to be matched with a suitable cornea.

And what happens next is really and truly anyone’s guess.

Almost three years ago when I suffered a corneal perforation, it was just another step in the years-long journey of chronic eye disease. A common virus that attacked my cornea when my daughter was only three months old led to corneal scarring, chronic inflammation of the iris, and glaucoma. The perforation was only the latest in a string of terrible things to happen to my left eye, but it was also undoubtedly the most threatening.

I will never forget the moment the corneal specialist explained how they would plug the hole in my cornea with medical grade crazy glue; and there it has been ever since, a white dot of glue quite literally holding my eye together as we tried to determine next steps. On good days I am in discomfort; this is about 5/7 days. On the other two days I am in pain, and eye pain is difficult to describe without using words like “skewering”, “white hot” and “agony”. What I’ve learned is that eyes don’t like having glue in them, and respond with pain to the daily presence of this very foreign object.

Prior to the perforation my vision had been blurry at best, and the glaucoma had threatened my peripheral vision. After the crazy glue all vision ceased as the glue obscured my vision entirely, and what was happening in terms of functional vision was, and is, largely unknown.

And so a year ago I faced a crossroad.

My corneal specialist said there were two options; the first was to enucleate my left eye.

For those not familiar with the term, “enucleation” is simply a euphemism for removing the eye entirely.

I have never come so close to puking on a physician’s glossy wingtip shoes as I did that day, as while removal of my eye had always been a possibility it was one I had refused to even consider.

Had a physician said we need to remove your spleen or your appendix, I think I would have been okay; aside from the regular worries of surgery, of course. But it seems when a physician suggests removing something you can physically see, like an arm or a leg or a hand or an eyeball an entirely new attitude develops. I can’t see my spleen or my appendix, but I can see those other parts and their loss has a different significance; and so as I shakily pondered the possibility of a glass eye, he suggested the second option: a corneal transplant.

From basic testing we know my eye still has light sensitivity and thus some visual acuity remains. And we know a new cornea will be unblemished, compared to my poor old tired cornea which had suffered repeated scarring from viral attacks. But how much vision I will regain, if any, will not be known until the surgery is done, and likely not even then until several months have passed and the new cornea slowly adjusts to its new home.

The decision was fairly simple: remove my eye and end all problems with it, but also end all possibility of ever seeing from my left eye again, and taking a chance to see.

My friends, life is all about taking a chance.

Several months ago we added my name to the corneal transplant waitlist, and over time my name has gradually risen to the top. During the intervening time I have had much time to think and wait and worry, and engage in new jokes (like my daughter’s favourite, which is a rather morbid “my mom sees through dead people” line delivered in the driest of fashion).

And I have had time to reflect. None of this has been easy, not from the moment my eye disease was diagnosed almost eighteen years ago. Even in the last two years there have been challenges as I have been on medications that caused a cascade of side effects, like chronic exhaustion, ferocious heartburn and kidney stones (I don’t recommend kidney stones, avoid these). There have been times when I feel tired of it all and other times when I feel so fortunate compared to others who face far more significant health battles than my own; and now as I face the transplant I find myself simply in wonderment of what is about to transpire, and how the tragic loss of another life will very possibly change mine forever.

People ask if I’m excited; if by excited they mean completely fucking terrified, the answer is yes. The odds remain in my favour, and I hope to regain some vision. The odds that my eye will reject the new cornea are low; but if it does then there is a chance I will find myself again facing the complete loss of one of the beautiful blue eyes I inherited from my parents.

But I am weary, too. Weary of the battle, weary of the chronically red eye I fight when it is tired or stressed, weary of the pain, weary of the droopy eyelid that appeared a few years ago, weary of the endless visits to specialists, weary of downplaying the severity of this disease and the impact it has had on my life. And so, I embark on this next phase, ready to accept whatever happens.

Because things cannot continue as they are. Either I will see the world through a fresh new cornea (well, slightly used but it’s best not to think of the mechanics too deeply) or I will never see from my left eye again. I accept either outcome.

I have a tendency to downplay things; very few people know much about my divorce for instance as I tend to speak of it lightly, but there is nothing light about the end of a 24-year marriage. And few know the intricacies of the battle I’ve fought with my left eye and the tremendous journey I have ahead, with a significant recovery period fraught with potential for it to all go wrong.

And this waiting for a cornea? It’s unbelievably difficult for someone who has a patience factor of zero. It is a bit like having a baby; at any moment the wheels could be set in motion by a phone call, and 48 hours later I will be the recipient of a new cornea. But it means every time my phone rings I jump slightly, as this could be “the call”. Every morning I wake up wondering if today will be the day, and every night I fall asleep thinking it might be tomorrow.

So there we are. I now sit and wait, and everything in my life has taken on new urgency as nothing can be left to wait or to chance; if the lawn needs to be mowed it must be done now as I might be gone tomorrow, and I feel like I am constantly teetering on the edge of a cliff of uncertainty.

I have debated often on sharing the depth of this experience, but those who know me best know that part of the reason I write is to encourage others to share their experiences, too. So many of us live with chronic illness, disease or dysfunction, but like me we often downplay it in our desire to be stoic (and in some cases like my own a stubborn refusal to admit or acknowledge we may not be Wonder Woman after all).

And so today, like every other day over the last year, I sit and wait and wonder and worry and hope. One day I will get the call and be gone for a few days, and when I come back instead of glue in my eye you will be able to see the tiniest of sutures, where the cornea of some kind and generous soul has been stitched onto me, the very thinnest of tissues giving rise to the very greatest of hopes.

This entire journey has been visionary; it has changed how I see everything. People have asked my how I have kept my optimism through the last 17 years, but in truth isn’t optimism sometimes all we have? And so I enter this phase of the journey with my eye with optimism and with an understanding that no matter the outcome, I have a new vision because of it. While the sight in my left eye remains open to question, my life has come into sharper focus than ever before as in the last ten years I have seen the death of both my parents, the end of a 24-year marriage, the survival of a natural disaster, the transition of my daughter from child to adult and now, most unexpectedly, a corneal transplant.

And the view, my friends? It is, quite truly, resplendent.