It’s a sad old world.
Amongst last week’s nightly news broadcasts were a few words on a woman from New Brunswick killed when her car went off the road near Cartwright.
Her name was Natasha Roussel - friends called her Chacha.
She was a beautiful woman, full of life and excited about the world.
I met Chacha at the St. Anthony Town Council office when they were unveiling a new addition to the town’s website. Mistaking her for a government communication’s officer, I soon learned she was travelling the Northern Peninsula on her vacation and was sleeping in her car. I offered her the couch and she became good friends of myself and my buddy, Michael Boiduk.
She stayed a month and in my confused rush to get to work on the day she left for Labrador, I never said a proper good-bye.
The next morning the RCMP called trying to track down her parents.
She’s gone and the world is in the hands of the living, so we move on.
But what has passed before remains - the memories and moments of a person who’s dead may be forgotten by the living, but they don’t cease to be beautiful.
The past few days I’ve gotten a steady stream of calls and visits from people around the tip of the Northern Peninsula who were touched by her during her brief stay. She was touched by them too and spoke often of how open and caring people around here were to her.
A wandering artist, Chacha had spent her life making friends.
I spoke to her father last Wednesday, two days after he told Chacha he loved her for the last time, and he spoke of how happy she was travelling.
She’s gone now, but the rugged beauty of this land with its open hearts and open doors made her last month a good one.
Jerome Kennedy
The Pen has made five requests to speak with this province’s health minister.
It has lodged two Access to Information requests - one of which was delayed 20 days beyond the 30 day deadline, the other still hasn’t been received.
The people of this area have travelled to the steps of Confederation Building to demand a meeting, they also travelled to Corner Brook.
A government, however inconvenient it may be, needs to speak to the people.
If the people of the Northern Peninsula and Southern Labrador have enough faith in this government to not believe it would be so incompetent as to move an air ambulance service over an 11 page consultant’s report which didn’t include the opinion of the professionals who run the service, then they are owed answers.
After repeatedly being denied the opportunity to ask questions of the health minister, the Pen‘s editorial staff published an open letter on the front page of last week’s paper demanding an interview.
It’s been three months - he hasn’t been busy the entire time and he’s talked to other media on the subject despite the ongoing court case.
He didn’t respond.
CBC Radio invited both the Pen and Mr. Kennedy to have our reasonable questions answered over the airwaves on middle ground.
We were there Mr. Kennedy, where were you?
You responded by calling into the VOCM’s open line show later that day, where you wouldn’t have to answer us directly.
Pitiful.
