Deep Roots Farms

What We Teach Them

The recent reporting out of Cornell 7 and the other 50 men who were in that chat group has had me thinking about something bigger than one story.

What are we teaching our children about courage, integrity, and standing up when something doesn’t feel right?

We tell them to trust their gut.
To ask questions.
To look for the whole story, and perhaps even more importantly, to notice what might be missing.

We tell them not to simply follow the crowd.

But integrity isn’t something we say we have.

It’s something we show.

It’s living by our principles when it’s easy, but especially when it’s hard.

When speaking up is uncomfortable.
When standing alone is frightening.
When staying quiet would be easier.

And perhaps most importantly, when what we believe in private is difficult to say out loud.

Because it’s easy to believe something behind closed doors.

It’s harder to stand by it when the crowd is watching.

Our children don’t need us to teach them that they’ll always know who is right.

They need us to teach them to pause when something doesn’t feel right.

To look closer.
To listen.
To question.
To notice what isn’t being said.

And to have the courage to stand by their principles, not just when no one is watching, but when everyone is.

Because maybe you’re wrong.

But maybe you’re right.

And sometimes the greatest failure isn’t believing the wrong thing.

It’s knowing something feels wrong, and choosing silence because speaking up would cost you something.

What we do when it matters is what we teach them.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately…

I’m trained to ask a lot of questions, and I mean a LOT of questions.

Sometimes questions that, to someone else, probably seem completely unrelated to why I’m there.

“When did you last eat?”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“When was the last time you felt like yourself?”

“Who is at home with you?”

“When did this actually start?”

“What has changed lately?”

And sometimes the answer to one small, seemingly insignificant question opens an entire thread.

Ask someone when and what they last ate and you might learn whether they’re nourished, whether they’re taking care of themselves, whether money is tight, whether they’re exhausted, whether they’re struggling, whether there is something much bigger going on and so much more…

Then you ask another question.

And another.

You pull on little threads until the whole picture starts to come together.

Because the first answer is rarely the whole story.

And I’ve been wondering…

Why don’t we do this more in ordinary life?

We hear something about someone and accept it.

We hear they’re difficult.
Unapproachable.
Angry.
Toxic.

We hear it once.
Then again.
Then from someone else.

And somewhere along the way, a story becomes a reputation.

A reputation becomes a truth.

And the person at the centre of it can disappear completely.

What if we asked one more question?

What if we went to the person instead of the story?

What if we looked for the pieces that were missing?

Because people are complicated.

There are histories.
Context.
Hurt.
Fear.
Misunderstandings.
Things people couldn’t or were not allowed to say.
Things nobody thought to ask.

Sometimes one missing piece changes the entire picture.

Maybe we should be a little more curious with each other.

Not suspicious.

Curious.

Ask another question.

Pull another thread.

Look a little closer.

Because sometimes the difference between judging someone and understanding them is simply being willing to ask:

“What am I missing?”

📸 s ʜ ᴀ ɴ ᴛ ɪ ɴ ᴀ ʀ ᴀ ᴇ

I didn’t realize how much of me was built around knowing he was there.

I went on a call the other day, and I felt his absence before I even had words for it.

It wasn’t simply that he wasn’t there.

I was missing half of me.

For 16 years, Will and I have served together.
His first calls as Duty Officer, I was in the seat beside him.

When the plane crashed, we were side by side, first on scene and then afterward taking care of what was left so that our crews didn’t have to.

My first call as a paramedic was one of the hardest calls of my life, cutting down a friend who had died by su***de.

He was there.
Right beside me.

He has stepped between me and violent patients.

He has stood behind me when I was overwhelmed and in over my head.

He noticed the things I missed…

the sh***un by the door,
the person behind me,
the danger I hadn’t seen.

He was always watching.

Watching the room. Watching me. Watching my back while I watched everyone else’s.

And if you’ve ever watched Will work, you know.
He was exceptional.

One of those first responders who somehow became calmer as everything around him became chaos. The kind of person you wanted beside you when things went sideways.

Watching him work was almost an art form.

He didn’t need to be the loudest person in the room.

He didn’t need to prove anything.

He just had this way of making chaos feel manageable.

And somewhere over those 16 years, we developed a language that didn’t need words.

A glance.
A movement.
A look across a room.
We just knew.

When COVID hit, I was afraid. Not just for myself, but for our family. For our kids. For what we might bring home.

And Will calmed that fear.

He reminded me who we were.

He reminded me what we were capable of.

Because emergency services was never just something we did.

We spent years in a volunteer department, and sometimes I had to remind him, and myself, that not everyone was there for the same reasons.

Some people were there for the social life.
Some for the camaraderie.
Some for the shirt.

We weren’t.

We were there because somewhere along the way, this became part of the very fabric of our bones.

Emergency services became deeply woven into who we are.

For people like us, it is almost akin to breathing.

You don't think about breathing.

You just do.
You show up.
You answer the call.

You step toward the things most people instinctively step away from.

And for 16 years, we did that together.

Through some of the worst days of our lives.

And some of the most meaningful.

We watched each other grow.

I watched him become a leader.

He watched me become a paramedic and then a leader as well.

We challenged each other. Pushed each other. Made each other better.

And somewhere along the way, the line between partner at home and partner on the call disappeared.

He became part of how I moved through the world.

That's what makes this so difficult to explain.

Because people can say,
"You've been going on calls on your own for years."

And they're right.

I have.

But I was never really alone.

Because somewhere in the back of my mind was always the certainty:

If this one is bad enough, he'll come.

He always did.

We talked about it the other night.

He also reminded me that I've been going on calls on my own for years.

And I told him, in my own way, that maybe I had.

But I always knew that if I needed him, he would come.

Now he can't.

And I feel the difference.

When I come home, I have to explain what I saw.

What happened.
What stayed with me.
What I couldn't shake.

Before, sometimes I could sit beside him after a call and say absolutely nothing.

Because he was there.

He had seen it.
He knew.
The silence was enough.

That's the kind of partnership you build after 16 years of standing in the worst moments of people's lives together.

It's more than marriage.

More than friendship.

More than working together.

It's trust built in chaos.

It's knowing where the other person is without looking.

It's knowing someone is watching your back while you're trying to save someone else's life.

It's having someone who sees the cracks before you admit they're there.

Someone who catches what you miss.

Someone who pushes you to be better.

Someone who will step between you and danger without thinking twice.

Will is my husband.

But on calls, he was also my partner, my extra set of eyes, my safety net, my protector, my constant.

My best friend.

And I never realized how much of my ability to breathe came from knowing he was somewhere behind me.

Until he wasn't.

For 16 years, I knew that when I walked toward the worst moment of someone's life, I wouldn't have to carry it completely alone.

There would be someone behind me.

Watching the room.
Watching the exits.
Watching the danger.
Watching me.

The person I never had to look for.

I simply knew where he was.

And now I catch myself looking.

In the passenger seat.
At the door.
Across the room.
Somewhere behind me on a call.

And for one tiny moment, my body still expects him to be there.

Then reality catches up.

And he's not.

I can still do the job.
I can still treat the patient.
I can still make the decisions.
I can still walk into the hard things.

But there is a difference between being capable of standing alone...

and having someone you never had to stand without.

For 16 years, I had him.

And maybe that's what I'm grieving.

Not that I can't do this without him.

But that I never wanted to have to.

Because wherever the call took me, no matter how dark it became, there was always one certainty underneath the chaos:

If I needed him, he would come.

He always came.

And now I have to learn how to walk into the darkness...

without hearing his footsteps behind me.

Because emergency services may be akin to breathing for people like us.

But somewhere along the way,

he became part of that breath.

And now, on the calls where I used to know he was there,

I am trying to breathe with half of me missing.

We remember the fallen. But what about the still living?

September is Su***de Prevention Month.

During my years in emergency services, I also volunteered for 2.5 years on the crisis line. It was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life.

What stayed with me most was isolation.

That feeling of being surrounded by people, but still feeling like nobody could truly understand what you’re carrying.

I think about that often when I think about emergency services.

When you’ve spent years in this world, you become connected in a way that’s difficult to explain to people outside of it.

The calls.
The dark humour.
The memories.
The things you saw.
The things you can’t unsee.

Sometimes you don’t need words.

You just know.

Will and I have lived that together for decades, We’ve gone to calls together. We’ve experienced some of the same trauma.

Sometimes something affected him and not me.

Sometimes it was the other way around.

But we could see it in each other.

We didn’t always have to explain.

Maybe that’s part of why we’ve made it through so much together.

Because when the person you love has also lived the world you’re living in, there is an understanding that doesn’t need words.

I’ve found that same connection with my friend Shannon. We connected through our shared experiences in this industry and in our relationships, as two couples who have served and lived this life.

Because emergency services doesn’t just connect the people wearing the uniform.

It connects their partners. Their families. Their lives.

That’s why the work Shannon is doing through beyond_the_front_lines means so much to me.

Because sometimes the call ends, but the impact doesn’t.

Sometimes the uniform comes off.

Sometimes the career ends.

And sometimes that world is simply taken away from you.

And you don’t just lose a job. You can lose your community.

Your purpose.
Your identity.

The people who understood without needing an explanation.

We remember the fallen.

We should.

But what about the still living?

The firefighter who stopped coming around.

The paramedic who doesn't talk about certain calls anymore.

The person who retired and suddenly lost their community.

The person who had to leave.

The person who always says, “I'm fine.”

Check on them.

Not once.

Again.

Because sometimes people don't need advice.
They need connection.

They need someone who understands.

Someone willing to sit in the uncomfortable place and say: “You don't have to explain it. I understand.”

Maybe su***de prevention isn't only about recognizing the moment someone is in crisis.

Maybe it's also about making sure people don't become so isolated that they believe nobody could understand.

So this September, check on your people.

Your firefighter.
Your paramedic.
Your police officer.
Your dispatcher.
Your retired member.
Your partner.
Your friend.

Especially the person who has suddenly lost the world they once called home.

Because protecting the people who protect everyone else isn't just about getting them safely home after the call.

It's about caring what happens to them after the call is over, too.

We remember the fallen.

But let's not forget the still living.

https://www.beyondthefrontlines.org

Su***de & Crisis Support (BC): Call or text 988 — available 24/7 across Canada. If there is immediate danger, call 911.

*please note that photograph 1 is not a real callout but a training exercise*

***dePrevention ***deAwareness

I’ve always felt like I live somewhere between two worlds.

There’s a darkness in me. A fierceness. A part that was born in the Year of the Horse, the dark side of Pieces, rooted in my Celtic and Viking ancestry, that knows how to fight, survive and keep moving.

And then there’s the other side of me.

The soft side.
The mother.
The woman behind the camera.

The part that loves deeply, creates, nurtures and finds beauty in the quiet.

For a long time, I thought those sides of me were at war.

Now I think they were always meant to exist together.

I can be soft without being weak.

Kind without being naive.

Calm without surrendering.

Strong without becoming hard.

My silence has never meant I stopped moving.

Sometimes resilience looks like fighting.

Sometimes it looks like simply getting back up and continuing forward.

And maybe that’s what I love most about contrast, the dark makes the light more beautiful.

I don’t believe we have to choose one version of ourselves.

We can be mothers and have careers.

We can build businesses and build strong families.

We can create art, work hard, love fiercely and still find time to be soft.

We can be all of it.

The softness. The fire. The mother. The woman. The creator. The fighter.

I am not choosing between them anymore.

I am learning to carry every piece of myself… the light and the dark, the tenderness and the teeth.

My calm is not surrender.
My silence is not weakness.

My softness is not something to be mistaken for fragility.

I have survived enough to know what I am made of.

And I am not moving backward.

I am moving forward with fire in my blood, hope in my heart, and nothing left to prove.

I am not becoming someone else.

I am becoming fully myself.

And this time, I’m bringing every part of me with me.

Watch me burn…

📸 s ʜ ᴀ ɴ ᴛ ɪ ɴ ᴀ ʀ ᴀ ᴇ Jenn Knight

I don’t even know how to put this into words.

We thought we were sharing our story.

We never expected so many of you to give us pieces of yours in return.

The phone calls from people we have never even met.

The emails.
The hundreds of comments.
The private messages that kept coming.
The multiple people who stopped us in the grocery store, on the street, at the gas station… wherever they happened to see us.

Complete strangers who felt they needed to tell us they were standing with us.

People sharing stories about Will that we had never heard.

Moments he probably doesn’t even remember.

Ways he showed up for someone, helped someone, encouraged someone, or simply made a difference without ever knowing how deeply it stayed with them.

And then there were the numbers…

96+ comments filled with love and support.
30 shares.
76,000+ views.
More than a thousand likes and loves.

But honestly, the numbers are the least important part.

Because behind every one of them was a person.

A person who stopped scrolling.
A person who cared enough to reach out.
A person who remembered Will.
A person who wanted us to know that he mattered.

And I don’t think we were prepared for that.

After everything, there is something incredibly powerful about being reminded that you cannot erase a lifetime of service from the hearts of the people who witnessed it.

You cannot erase the calls answered.
The doors opened.
The hours given.
The people helped.
The lives touched.

You can move forward.
You can change titles.
You can change positions.

But you cannot erase the mark someone leaves on people.

And this community has reminded us of that in a way I will never forget.

I have cried reading your messages.

I have smiled reading your stories.

I have watched Will read words from people he hasn’t spoken to in years.

And I have watched him realize that all those years of quietly showing up for everyone else meant something.

It meant more than something.

It mattered.

He mattered. He matters.

So to every stranger who called.

Every person who emailed.
Every person who sent a private message.
Every person who commented.
Every person who stopped us somewhere just to say, “We see you. We know who Will is. We know what he has given.”

Thank you.

You have carried us in ways you will probably never understand.

And when the noise fades, when the views disappear, when the posts are no longer being shared, these are the things we will remember.

The stories.
The kindness.
The love.

And the incredible reminder that sometimes the people who have quietly given the most are loved by far more people than they ever knew.

Will is loved.

Deeply.

And because of all of you, we know that now in a way we never did before. ❤️‍🩹

Thank you from our whole hearts.

Last night, I went to practice to teach, and I found myself thinking about something that has been sitting heavy with me.

In emergency services, we spend our lives learning how to meet people on their worst day.

We learn to slow down.
To listen.
To protect dignity.

To show compassion when someone is frightened, hurting, angry, or afraid.

But I wonder why those lessons can sometimes become harder to practice when we’re dealing with people we know.

Why can compassion feel easier when we’re helping a stranger than when we’re navigating difficulty with our own?

Maybe it’s because community is complicated.

People have history.
People have different perspectives.

And when things become difficult, it’s easy to forget the humanity of the person on the other side.

Compassion doesn’t mean the absence of accountability.

It means remembering that accountability and humanity can exist in the same room.

Last night, I taught people how to care for others on their worst day.

And I left wondering what could change if we remembered to extend that same compassion to the people beside us.

That’s the kind of community I want to be part of.

Few of you know the story of how Will and I met, and for those of you who don’t, let me tell you a story.

I was just twenty years old when I met Will.

I was studying criminology at VIU, working toward becoming a police officer, and I needed volunteer hours.

So I joined the volunteer fire department.

At the time, it seemed like a pretty practical decision. Get some experience. Give some time. Maybe learn a few things along the way.

I had no idea I was walking into the beginning of the rest of my life.

Will was just a firefighter then.

He was already trying to move toward becoming an officer, and there was something about him that I noticed almost immediately.

I remember looking at him and thinking, what is this?
There was something about him I couldn't look away from.

Something different.
Something I had never felt before.
It wasn't just attraction.
It was recognition.

Like some quiet, ancient part of me knew him before I did.

Like coming home after being gone for years and realizing you'd been homesick for a place you'd never seen.

I couldn't have told you why.

I just knew.

We had mutual friends, other firefighters in fact , so we started spending time together.

And somewhere between those first days and all the years that followed, I fell in love with him.

But I also got to watch him become himself.

I watched him say yes to every opportunity to learn.

Every course.
Every training.
Every chance to become better.
He was relentless about it.

He didn't want to simply wear the uniform.

He wanted to earn it.

And then there were the calls.

The ones that change you.

The ones I will never unsee.

And somehow, through some of the darkest moments I've experienced, there was always Will.
Beside me.

A little ahead.
A little behind.
Always watching.

My constant shadow.

Making sure I was okay.

Making sure his people were okay.

He had this way of making you feel safer simply because he was there.

And I watched him do that for firefighter after firefighter.

If someone needed him, he went.

If someone was hurting, he stayed.

If there was something terrible that had to be walked toward, he walked toward it.

Not because he wasn't afraid.

But because someone had to.

And if it meant carrying a little more so someone else could carry a little less, he would.

That was the man I knew long before anyone called him Chief.

And maybe that's what I want people to remember.

The title came later.

The man was already there.

And all these years later, after everything we've lived and everything we've become...

I still look at him sometimes and think the same thing I did that very first day.

You're going to be in my life for a very, very long time.
I just didn't know then

how much of my life you would become. 🤍

For those of you who don’t actually know this man, his name is Will.

Before he was Fire Chief, before the meetings, politics, and opinions, he was a 22-year-old kid who joined the Gabriola Volunteer Fire Department.

For the next 22 years, he gave an incredible amount of his life to this community.

Those who know Will have a saying:

Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.

Give him a problem, and he would find a solution. No money? He found grants, fundraised, or figured out how to do it himself. Something broken? He was often the first one underneath it trying to fix it.

He never believed being Chief meant standing back and telling everyone else what to do. If there was a dirty, difficult job, he was often right there doing it.

When Gabriola needed a burn building, he helped secure the funding and then spent his own weekends, labour, machines, and tools helping build it.

He pushed to strengthen Gabriola’s wildfire capability, building relationships and opportunities that brought significant funding and support back to the island.

After standing on calls watching people die where more could potentially have been done if responders had greater training, medications, and scope, he refused to accept that island communities should settle for less. He spent years helping build the EMR program, lobbied for funding, advocated for better emergency medical care, and publicly fought for better ambulance coverage.

He obsessed over designing apparatus that would work for our roads, terrain, water supply, firefighters, and reality then drove trucks home from Manitoba on his own time to save the community money.

Six days into becoming Chief, he faced a plane crash. Then COVID hit in his first year. He found a way to keep a volunteer department operational while reducing burnout and contamination.

He implemented CISM and mental-health resources, supported inclusion, fought for firefighters and community members, and built relationships that created our departments first mutual-aid agreements for an island fire department.

Continued in comments…

Lil sweet thing 💕