Three cheers for boring...
Vancouver Airport - a very unboring place, especially if you can't speak English...
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National Post
Published: Saturday, November 17, 2007
Jurek Baltakis is one of the leaders of the Kamloops Polish community. He has known Zofia Cisowski, the mother of Robert Dziekanski, since shortly after she arrived in the British Columbia interior. Today at 11 a.m. he will deliver this eulogy at a public memorial service held at the Kamloops Funeral Home.
In Kamloops we have very small Polish community, so we are all very close and know each other well. Last four weeks brought us closer than ever before.
Unfortunately we did not have a chance to meet and welcome a new member of our community. As a new Canadian immigrant, Robert made only as far as Vancouver airport, possibly going to the history books as a shortest live Canadian immigrant ever.
Robert was born 40 years ago in Bielawa, midsize town, southwest of Poland. As a young boy, he moved with his mother to much larger town, Gliwice, where Zofia could find better job to support him. Life for single mom was not that ease in Poland at that time.
In Gliwice, he graduated the technical high school as the miner. This was a very popular occupation in Gliwice, which is famous for pit coal mining sector. After upgrading his trade he enjoy working on construction before immigrating to Canada.
Like I said before, I did not have a chance to meet Robert, but in last four weeks I learn a few amazing stories about his life.
Just imagine yourself, you are leaving Canada and going to some unknown country 9,000 km away. You have only three small suitcases. What would you take with you? Tough decision, is it not?
Not for Robert. He stuffed one suitcase with some clothes and gifts for relatives and two suitcases full of geography books, atlases and magazines like National Geographic.
As Zofia is saying, he was the geography freak. He knew the names of major rivers, lakes and capitals on every continent on the Earth. And you know what? He was buried with two front pages of National Geographic. One of them was showing Poland, and the other beautiful B.C. Two weeks ago when Zofia said her final goodbye to Robert, she brought these two pages so he can make his last trip to eternity and remember that he was a Polish-Canadian.
One more thing which comes to my mind is Robert's love to his mom.
He always remembered about Zofia's birthday, names day (European tradition) and nice postcards from every trip he went on. Not only his handwriting was one of a kind, as you will see on the slide show, but the content was very nice and thoughtful. Just take look on the last page of the memorial card.
This is from the postcard Robert sent to his mom, Zofia:
"Ludzie staja sie dobrzy poprzez praktykowanie dobroci, rzadko sie zdarza czlowiek dobry z natury. Dobroc istnieje wcale nie po to by z niej korzystac. Dobroc nie moze wyplywac ze slabosci tylko z potegi." Gliwice, 26/07/2006 Translation of Robert's notes to his mom:
"People become good by doing good; it is rare that a person is good by nature alone.
Goodness does not exist so one can make use of it. Goodness does not flow from a place of weakness but one of power."
Just from the quotations he wrote to Zofia, I can say that Robert would be a great Canadian citizen and we would be all very proud of him.
Now I would like to make the small experiment here: " Wszyscy ktorzy mowia po Polsku prosze podniesc prawa reke do gory." [Put your right hand up.]
I can see that most of you are confused and cannot follow simple instruction. Looks like you do not understand Polish.
This is how Robert felt for over nine hours at the airport. Lost, confused, thirsty and hungry and ignored by all.
I made the same trip over 20 years ago. Two small children, Maria and me. We arrived at Vancouver airport tired and our hearts pounding. We were so uncertain and afraid. Fortunately people from immigrants services welcome us and help us at the Vancouver and Kamloops airport. They were like guardian angels for us.
Robert was not so fortunate. The airport services have failed him and Zofia. There were no guardian angels or any other helpful human beings working there to prevent this tragedy. Our everyday Canadian kindness was missing there.
In closing, let Robert's spirit live on in each of you. Love your mother, father, family and friends as Robert loved Zofia and his family. Let your love reach out to Zofia and the rest of Robert's family.
In Robert's words, "It is rare that a person is good by nature alone. People become good by doing good."
Today when you leave here, do something good. And tomorrow, when you get out of bed, make it your first choice to do something good. And every day after that, do good things.
People become good by doing good, Robert said. You become good by doing good. Be good people.
-Memorial donations may be made to Zofia Victims Trust, account 74666, Valley First Credit Union, 100-180 Seymour St., Kamloops B.C., V2C 2E3
© National Post 2007
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