Many anniversaries being remembered today, not all good ones!

Five years ago was a very tough day for me, starting early in the morning with doing a eulogy for a dear friend's funeral and immediately following it I left for Dauphin to attend my brother-in-laws funeral. Dauphin is an hour and a half drive. After his funeral I had to stop at the mall to pick something up and when I got back to my car I had a flat tire. I called CAA, was towed to the garage, had the tire repaired and then headed back to Russell. I got home about 9:30pm. I changed into my flannel jammies to relax for the evening, around midnight my radio (I was a paramedic at the time and supervisor of the station) went off to say that a RCMP officier had been shot. I pulled on my coveralls and jacket, was picked up by a partner and we met the ambulance at the scene or at least that was the plan. We arrived early and were mistaken for the criminals and in the process I was almost shot. I got over the immediate shock at the time and went about doing my job and caring for the officier and we transported him to hospital via ambulance. Unfortunately he did not survive! It was a long night of being posted at the hospital and then at a location on the highway for a good part of the day...a very long day. It was storming and cold and stressful. Once the criminals were captured, then the debriefings started and we had to relive everything.....I worked for three months before the post traumatic stress took its toll on me and I had to leave my job. The same day I left my job, I found out I had colon cancer. I was one of the lucky ones and the surgery the doctor did got all the cancer.
I made many trips to Winnipeg for counselling for the PTSD and during this time many family members passed away including Dennis's parents, brother-in-law, my uncle, a friend and my sister. I left my job as a paramedic, a job that I loved but felt the toll was too much on my spirit so I walked away to attend to family.
Today I remember Dennis Strongquill and I laid a wreath at the site of his passing in memory and at 12:30 am Dec. 21 I will say a prayer for him and pray that nothing like that should happen again in our small town. I also remember his partner and my friend Brian Auger.