Some of us will have our lives ripped from our hands in an instant with nary a second to ponder our existence, while others, like Gord Downie, will be handed their death sentence and time. None of us is getting out of here alive there’s nothing more certain about life than our eventual death. And tonight, you can be sure I’ll be listening to The Hip and remembering. On the anniversary of that concert, I’ve decided to bring it home and have it live on my site where it belongs. I wrote it from the heart, and it remains one of the things I’ve written that I’m most proud of. It went viral across Canada, with over 73,000 shares on Facebook alone. It's not easy and, what can you say, there's a lot of pain without really going back and digging it up.I originally published this article at YMC the day after The Tragically Hip’s final concert aired on the CBC in August 2016. "You know, I feel enough pain without having to go back and see some of the images, or hear the music and things like that. I see stuff and I …," Patrick says, taking a moment to collect himself before continuing his thought. To get in there in the way Gord would, just to kind of work your way through it and stay active," Patrick explains when asked how difficult it's been to see all those moments with Gord again in the documentary. "In many ways, Mike is in the trenches, and I think that's really helped him cope with the pain. Making the documentary has been a welcome distraction for Mike, and a painful reminder for Patrick. Now that he's gone, "letting go" is something that Gord Downie's brothers are also struggling with. He clearly was so taken with it and couldn't let it go." When you hear the songs, clearly it was affecting him. "For Gord, his way of experiencing the world is to write about it. "I think he really tried to put himself in those shoes and imagine what that was like," Mike says. Written entirely in the first person, Downie tried to feel what Chanie Wenjack was feeling on his journey from moment he was taken away from his family, to his lonely death. The Secret Path began as 10 poems that Gord Downie wrote as he grappled with Chanie's story. Gord Downie (right) visited Pearl Wenjack at her home in Marten Falls First Nation ahead of the launch of his Secret Path project, which is devoted to Pearl's brother Chanie (Charlie) Wenjack. He saw it as something that I think made sense to him as his life was coming to an end." Mike says he hopes the film makes it clear that this idea, "meant a lot to this guy, he wasn't chasing causes around, this was really important. It's not very pleasant, but don't look away,' you know?" "Then for him to say, 'Look at this, this is our country too. ![]() And for him that missing piece became very obvious. "That there wasn't a whole country, you know, we hadn't figured out what that missing piece was. ![]() "Growing up, he always felt that there was something missing," says Mike. It was a moment that helped Gord finally get at something that had been nagging at him for years. And I think at that time our feeling was, if we knew so little about something like this, like wow, there must be millions of Canadians who have no idea." "I really didn't know anything about them, to my shame. "Gord and I, we knew so little about residential schools," Mike says. The hour-long film chronicles that last year of Gord Downie's life, and his determination to tell Chanie Wenjack's story:Ī photo of Chanie Wenjack, held by his sister Pearl Achneepineskum, seen in a Canadian Heritage Minute. An encore broadcast of the documentary will air on CBC News Network on Oct. ![]() on CBC Television (9:30 NT), on the CBC TV streaming app and cbc.ca/watch.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |