Our World Became Quiet
This writing has been done to Honour our four Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officers who died tragically while on duty on March 3, 2005. They belonged to the Whitecourt and Mayerthorpe, Alberta R.C..M.P. Detachments. They were killed while protecting our Country which we are so proud to call Canada. Our sympathy goes out to their Families and Fellow R.C..M.P. Officers! I hope my words have paid tribute to them in a way everyone can understand.
Millie P. Lorenz
I watched you today; your face a blur in a picture before me.
I could not see clearly from my distance but I knew that it must have been you. I had never met you; never touched your life with any special thing I had done for you. I had never said hello to you or shared the story of my life with you. I had never taken your hand in mine and told you just how thankful I was to have you near.
I never looked at you as a Mother’s Precious Child, a child who was born and lived and laughed...... I never saw you grow up to be the magnificent person you came to be in my world. I left my world in your hands as I lived my days; all the while knowing you would be there for me if I ever needed you. I laid my head down on my pillow at night and never did I think of you as you watched over me in my world.; as you watched as a light in the darkness.
And when that day came for you, and you fell.... I was not there.....
It was a brief moment in my life that seemed to last forever; I held on to it; I wept! The time did not pass; no past or present could I feel.... My world became quiet. The birds did not sing; no breeze against my cheeks.... Only tears. The sky in my world was not blue and the sun did not shine. The pain in my heart belonged to me. I could not give it up nor would I give it up. I held on to the memory of your beautiful face before me.... someone I had never known.
And I asked myself, why? Why did you leave the way you did? Why wasn’t I there when the world became quiet? Could it be that I no longer see you as a blurred picture but as a person you needed in your life to make your world a safer place to be?
And then, I ask myself ....
Why did it take losing you to realize that I failed you? Who was I to think that you never needed me as a friend or someone to watch over you? Who was I to not have cared enough; not have cared enough that we could have walked arm in arm together to make our world a better place to be ? You died defending my world!
I know that when my tears are gone, I may never again see your face before me but I will carry the picture of you; I will carry the picture of all four of you in my heart forever! And, I will be truly thankful that you were there for me; asking nothing in return. And it is on this day when I say, “Thank you Constable Peter Schiemann.. Thank you Constable Leo Johnston.. Thank you Constable Brock Myrol.. Thank you Constable Anthony Gordon....
It is on this day when I ask that you watch over me still.... From above where Angels rest! I will walk forward. I will pick up your light and lift it high; I will find my way through the darkness! I will fight with the strength of your memories; knowing that others now share my journey; knowing that others walk with their personal conviction, walk by my side!
My feet may not always carry me on the road I must take but I will not be defeated in the fall because.... I will walk in your footsteps for you; I will walk with a new belief that we as people of Canada, can make this world a better place to be. We can walk arm in arm with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police because we will walk in the footsteps of Hope for a Better Tomorrow. Then, when we look back at the path of your footsteps and remember you, we will not see where you fell.....
We will see a lighted path of footsteps that have no end !!!!
Millie P. Lorenz
