When the two Mounties returned to Korenica, they convinced their United Nations (UN) colleagues to donate money to help the aged farmer reach what was left of his family across the border. Within a short period, they collected several hundred dollars.
With their pockets holding cash as well as candies, Mike and Roger drove their white vehicle with the black UN letters on the hood back toward the farmhouse. When they arrived, they found the old shepherd tending to his flock.
The farmer slowly made his way toward the two Canadians he had learned to trust. Corporal Floyd looked into the weather-beaten face of the old man. He explained to him again that he must leave his farm and go live with his relatives across the border. The farmer patiently listened to the young Canadian with the blue beret. He lowered his head and reiterated that he didn’t have any money to make his way across the border.
At that point, Corporal Floyd handed him the money and told him they would arrange with the Red Cross to ensure his safe passage. The farmer shook his head and returned the bills to the peacekeepers. Though he had lost just about everything that was dear to him, he still had his pride. “I can’t accept your money,” he quietly said. “And besides, I have to think of the sheep.”
Roger and Mike looked at each other. Mike had an idea. “What about this,” he offered. “With this money, we’ll buy your sheep from you. Then you’ll have the money to go to your relatives.”
“But who will take care of them?” asked the shepherd.
“Mike will,” replied Roger with a grin. The old man stared long and hard at the Canadian Mounties—foreign police officers to him. With his voice cracking and his faith restored in his fellowman, he slowly answered, “Hvallah,” or, “Thank you.”
With the Mounties’ help and the money they had collected, the old man made it safely across the border. The peacekeepers took care of the flock as promised, until word was received that the old man had died. Working with a representative of the village, Mike and Roger then dispersed the old man’s beloved sheep to those local area residents who most needed them. Soon after, our heroes’ tours of duty were over, and they quietly returned to their law enforcement duties in a major Canadian city—where sheep are scarce and shepherds more so.
Who says there are no real heroes in Canada? Few Canadians know that in a small hamlet in a distant land, these two RCMP officers are remembered as “the Canadian shepherds of Korenica.”
Wayne Watson
Orleans, Ontario
Thanks for Being Here
We are each of us angels with one wing, and can only fly embracing one another.
Luciano de Crescenzo
I had a bit of a fairy-tale upbringing, especially with regards to my music. My parents both came from very musical families. Mom taught me to step dance when I was five, and I started fiddling at age nine when a granduncle by the name of Charlie MacMaster sent me a fiddle from Boston. He said if I wanted to play it, I could keep it. It was a three-quarter size fiddle, which I had never tried before. Dad had lots of full-size fiddles in the house, but they were so big I couldn’t stick them under my chin. So this was a tinier fiddle and it fit me perfectly.
The Cape Breton community that I grew up in was very into traditional music, and I’d already been in a few concerts step dancing. So I’d had a good introduction to the stage by the time I played my first concert at age ten. Then I decided that I should take some lessons, so for the next three years I worked with my teacher, Stan Chapman.
It’s very easy to get gigs when you’re a fiddler in Cape Breton, because no matter how long you’ve been playing, news travels fast, and all the little communities rely on local talent. I loved playing, and very soon I was performing at a lot of local concerts!
Now, of course, I travel everywhere, and my touring schedule is very full. In 1999, along with Amy Sky, I wrote a song called “In My Hands,” which was a tribute to my fiddle and the great musical heritage it brings with it. For the next year I performed that song at all my concerts.
After a show, I usually sign autographs and CDs. People will often come up and say, “I really enjoyed your show, it was just tremendous,” and their words make me feel so good.
I’ve also received many beautiful cards and letters from people, saying things like, “I was having a bad day and your music really picked me up,” or simply, “You really brought a lot of joy to my heart.” Comments like that not only make me feel good, they make me feel like I’m serving a purpose. And when I read them, I don’t take it to heart as me bringing the joy, I take it as coming from the gift that God gave me. I feel so privileged to be able to deliver that to people.
A few months ago, a very special letter arrived that really touched me. It was a from a man named William who wrote:
Dear Natalie:
Every morning when I wake up, I thank God for you because you changed my life. In June, I was very depressed because I had lost a job. One night, I began to think about the best way to kill myself. I said to myself, “My wife will have to make the trip to Canada by herself.” Immediately I realized if I was dead, she would not go by herself. So then I said, “I’ll wait until we get back from Canada.”
We had been planning to attend the tall ships event in Halifax, and when I saw your name on the program, I knew for sure I had to go. I had bought one of your CDs when we were in Canada the year before, but I had no idea how popular you are.
We got to the concert about an hour and a half early, but already there were no chairs left.
While we stood there waiting, I thought about my life. I have been fighting depression for a long time. When my son was very ill about ten years ago, I made a vow to stick around until he was grown. Last year he got married and moved out. Before he got sick, I had played the flute. But for ten years there had been no music in my heart, and I had not played my flute for a very long time.
When you did “In My Hands” I heard a voice say, “Go home and play.” I realized then I had an instrument at home that belonged in my hands, every day.
The day after we got home I found a flute teacher and started lessons that week. I keep your picture on my music stand. You had signed it for me, “Thanks for being here.” Of course, you were referring to the concert.
Now, “Thanks for being here” is my morning prayer every day. I get up at 4:00 A.M. in order to find practice time before I go to work. I have already mastered a Bach sonata, and have started on a Mozart one.
It was your music that taught my heart to sing again, and taught my feet to dance again. You are my angel who gave me the message from God that delivered me from death to life.
So every morning, for the rest of my life, I will wake up and thank God for you, and for the fact that I am still here on this earth.
With deepest affection,
William
When I received William’s letter and read that he saw me as an angel who gave him a message from God, I was moved to tears. To me it’s just incredible the contact we can have with other people without even knowing. For me, my schedule’s crazy, and I’m going left, right and centre all the time, and sometimes I’m so busy that I don’t slow down long enough to think about things. And William’s letter really made me think for a moment about the impact that every one of us can have on each other as human beings.
And then there’s the effect that he had on me. He spoke about how grateful he is for my presence in his life through my music. But with his heartfelt letter, he’s given me something equally important. Which is just knowing that as I go about my life, doing the work that I love, that I can help make a difference.
Natalie MacMaster
Troy, Cape Breton Island,
Nova Scotia
In Flanders Fields
. . . lest we forget.
Canadian Major John McCrae sat on the back of an ambulance, parked just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, in France. Although he had been a member of Montreal’s McGill faculty since 1900, and had served in the South African war, he was
finding it impossible to get used to what he was experiencing. It was May of 1915, and the Great War raged around him.
As a Canadian surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, his experience here in the Ypres Salient was an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. In the last seventeen days he had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.
He had been particularly affected by the death of his young friend and former student, Alexis Helmer, from Ottawa. Alex had been killed the day before by a shell burst and had been buried later that day in the little cemetery nearby. In the absence of a chaplain, Major McCrae had personally performed the funeral ceremony for his friend.
His heart was heavy as he gazed at the scenes around him. In the nearby cemetery, he could see the wild poppies that sprang up quickly in the freshly turned earth in that part of Europe. And then, as he sat there on the back of the ambulance, the words began to flow into his mind. He grabbed a pen and paper and quickly wrote them down.
Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two-year-old sergeant major was delivering mail that day and approached Major McCrae as he wrote. He looked up, and then went on writing while the young soldier waited quietly. When he finished five minutes later, the major took his mail from Allinson and without a word, handed him the finished poem to read. What Cyril Allinson read astounded him.
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hand we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
Allinson looked around and realized that the poem was almost an exact description of the scene before them.
Unhappy with it, Major McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to the newspapers in England, where shortly after that it was published by Punch Magazine. The effects of the poem washed across England like a giant wave. All of Britain was moved and encouraged by the words, and it quickly spread throughout the allied nations.
Soon, the poppy became a symbol of life and resurrection. Each part of the flower represented some part of this war experience. Life and freedom became represented, all in this tiny red flower.
In 1918, Colonel John McCrae was seriously wounded and taken to a hospital on the coast of France. He was placed in a room where he might look out the window toward the Dover cliffs across the channel. Before he died three nights later, his final words were reported to be: “Tell them this, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep.”
Canadian Colonel John McCrae was buried in the cemetery of Wimereux, and his poem, “In Flanders Fields,” remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the brave men who fought for freedom in the Great War, and in the one that followed. Every year on November 11, Canadians from Cape Breton Island to Victoria wear their poppies in respect, and when McRae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” is read in the Remembrance Day ceremonies, we stand in silence and we remember.
Colonel John McCrae
story adapted from Welcome to Flanders Fields,
by Daniel G. Dancocks
O Canada!
O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux.
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix.
Ton histoire est une épopée,
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
More Chicken Soup?
Many of the stories and poems you have read in this book were submitted by readers like you who had read earlier Chicken Soup for the Soul books. We publish at least five or six Chicken Soup for the Soul books every year. We invite you to contribute a story to one of these future volumes.
Stories may be up to twelve hundred words and must uplift or inspire. You may submit an original piece, something you have read or your favorite quotation on your refrigerator door.
To obtain a copy of our submission guidelines and a listing of upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul books, please write, fax or check one of our Web sites.
Please send your submissions to:
Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 30880, Santa Barbara, CA 93130
fax: 805-563-2945
Web sites: www.chickensoup.com
www.clubchickensoup.com
We will be sure that both you and the author are credited for your submission.
For information about speaking engagements, other books, audiotapes, workshops and training programs, please contact any of our authors directly.
In the Spirit of Giving
In the spirit of supporting children, the publisher and coauthors of Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to:
The Tim Horton Children Foundation, Inc.
R.R. # 2, 264 Glen Morris Road East,
St. George, Ontario N0E 1N0
Phone: (519) 448-1248
Fax: 519-448-1415
www.timhortons.com
The Tim Horton Children Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization committed to providing a fun-filled and memorable camp environment for children from economically disadvantaged homes. This foundation was established by Ron Joyce, cofounder of Tim Hortons in honour of his friend and National League Hockey star Tim Horton, to recognize his love for children and his desire to help those less fortunate.
Each year, local children are selected from each of the communities in which a Tim Hortons store operates. This gives thousands of children the opportunity to attend one of the six camps, five across Canada and one in the United States, each offering unique opportunities. The foundation covers all expenses for the child, including transportation, food and lodging. Highly trained staff, excellent facilities and programs provide all the fun that is consistent with a first-class children’s camp. The camp experience is designed to give children confidence in their abilities, pride in their accomplishments and the chance to gain a positive view of this world and their future.
Information concerning the Tim Horton Children Foundation, Inc. may be obtained from the Web site or by writing to the address above. To make a donation, please call 519-448-1248.
Who Is Jack Canfield?
Jack Canfield is one of North America’s leading experts in the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. He is both a dynamic, entertaining speaker and a highly sought-after trainer. Jack has a wonderful ability to inform and inspire audiences toward increased levels of self-esteem and peak performance.
He is the author and narrator of several bestselling audio and videocassette programs, including Self-Esteem and Peak Performance, How to Build High Self-Esteem, Self-Esteem in the Classroom and Chicken Soup for the Soul—Live. He is regularly seen on television shows such as Good Morning America, 20/20 and NBC Nightly News. Jack has coauthored numerous books, including the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Dare to Win an
d The Aladdin Factor (all with Mark Victor Hansen), 100 Ways to Build Self-Concept in the Classroom (with Harold C. Wells), Heart at Work (with Jacqueline Miller) and The Power of Focus (with Les Hewitt and Mark Victor Hansen).
Jack is a regularly featured speaker for professional associations, school districts, government agencies, churches, hospitals, sales organizations and corporations. His clients have included Achiever’s Canada, the American Dental Association, the American Management Association, AT&T, Bob Proctor’s seminars, Campbell’s Soup, Clairol, Domino’s Pizza, GE, ITT, Hartford Insurance, Johnson & Johnson, the Millionaire’s Club, the Million Dollar Roundtable, NCR, New England Telephone, Re/Max, Scott Paper, Simon Fraser University, TRW and Virgin Records.
Jack conducts an annual eight-day Training of Trainers program in the areas of self-esteem and peak performance. It attracts educators, counselors, parenting trainers, corporate trainers, professional speakers, ministers and others interested in developing their speaking and seminar-leading skills.
For further information about Jack’s books, tapes and training programs, or to schedule him for a speech or seminar, please contact: