Columnists
Nobel prizewinners and everyday heroes
They awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday to Juan Manuel Santos. Santos is the president of Colombia who negotiated what has so far proven to be an uncertain end to 50-plus years of civil war.
Peace Prize winner last week, right here in Wellington. Dan McDonald, the co-proprietor of the It’s Wickedly Sweet bakery, worked two tours of duty as a UN peacekeeper— in Israel in 1985 and Iran in 1988. In that latter year, UN peacekeepers, collectively, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Had his health not deteriorated, Dan would no doubt have marched in our Pumpkinfest parade, sporting his blue beret and wearing a proud smile.
I got to know Dan through his bakery, He would tell me how his culinary studies at Loyalist College were proceeding, and show me the latest picture of his granddaughter. Things hit a bit of a bump for him when he was trying to do get his practical experience: he couldn’t handle the pressure of kitchen deadlines. He explained that it was because of his post traumatic stress disorder. How had he come by that, I asked. Oh, he said, it goes back to my peacekeeping days. And then he mentioned in passing that UN peacekeepers had won the peace prize. He understood that it wasn’t for his own personal accomplishments, but he also made it clear that he was an ordinary guy serving his country and that the Nobel people had just decided to honour the role of the peacekeeper that year. He was much more comfortable when the topic changed to his wife Laurie’s apple pies: why didn’t I take one or two home, he suggested in a low growl that imitated the sound of a man who had discovered a culinary masterpiece that he knew was going to satiate him.
Dan could have dined out on that Nobel award for years, or made it the first item on his ‘hi, how are you’ agenda. But he didn’t: I practically had to drag the information out of him. And that’s why I admired him— not because he was among the group that won the Nobel, but despite it. He was clearly a person who made a major personal sacrifice for the benefit of others, and was humble about it. I have added Dan to a list of names I keep, which I call my ‘everyday heroes.’ I’ll briefly mention a couple of others.
Peter’s spouse ran a shop. A daughter of one of the employees had received a kidney transplant that was failing her, and needed a new one. Peter unhesitatingly offered up his own kidney, and it turned out to be a good match. But that was the easy part. Peter then had to fight with the healthcare bureaucracy to get to the point where he could be operated on to remove and then transplant the kidney to the recipient. Both operations were successful. I ask Peter about his generosity from time to time and he shrugs it off as if it were no big deal.
John was married to Thora for 66 years until Thora died this summer. She endured crippling osteoporosis and for the past five years or so was essentially a housebound invalid. John attended on her for all those years without, until the very end, professional assistance, and without a peep of complaint. He obviously saw living up to his wedding vows by his actions as his duty, and his example to his family. He, too, has shrugged off his task as just what he was called upon to do in the circumstances.
I am sure you can come up with many such examples of your own.
The point I want to make is straightforward. Although it is a good thing that Alfred Nobel established the Peace Prize in his name, and although Mr. Santos is undoubtedly a worthy recipient, the world could manage if there were no Nobel prize winner. But the world certainly would not manage without our everyday heroes—the people who quietly go about making sacrifices for others. Fortunately, they are all around us; they are our neighbours, family and friends. Let us celebrate them, and what better time to do so than this ‘count your blessings’ time of year.
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