The other day my friend Sue was telling me about her mom,
Ethel Matechuk, who is a Royal Canadian Air Force Veteran of WWII.
Sue proudly describes her mother as a very positive lady with an indomitable
spirit and much good will. To illustrate her claim, Sue shared her
mother's favorite saying with me and the incident leading up to it's origin.
I was so taken by it that I asked Sue if I could feature her mother's
wisdom on Canadian Heroes as inspiration for us all.
Sue first heard her mother coin the phrase while they were looking through
a photograph album containing pictures of Ethel when she was in the Air
Force, during WWII. As Sue complimented her mother on how dignified she
looked in uniform her mother smiled and said,
"Now that I've grown old, I'm neither tall nor blond anymore,
but I must admit that whenever I dream, I still am."
Ethel Matechuk,
Royal Canadian Air Force, Woman's Division, World War II
You can find a speech written and presented by Ethel in the "Stories
Library" of Canadian Heroes, entitled The Women Who Stayed Behind
|