HUMBOLDT’S BROKEN HEART STILL BEATING
It’s been two weeks, nearly half a month, since a bus intersected with a semi on a Prairie highway and ripped Saskatchewan’s heart to pieces.
It feels like a year ago. It feels like a day ago. It feels like a minute ago.
We’ve learned, all over again, how small we are. These bodies we possess are so fragile: An 18-year-old kid ate Froot Loops in the morning, lugged an equipment bag to the bus in the afternoon and was mourned in the evening.
Sixteen people on the Humboldt Broncos’ bus died on a day when all they really wanted to do was play hockey, coach hockey, announce hockey, keep stats or take care of players.
I packed a duffel bag and drove into Humboldt on the night of April 6, a couple of hours after the crash, once it became apparent this was too big to fully comprehend.
I stayed until late in the night on April 9, tapping thousands of inadequate words onto a screen as horror grew and grief compounded.
And oh, did I learn.
I learned about the small city of Humboldt and how wonderful it is. Not many communities could have done what they did in circumstances this horrific.
The level of care given to grieving people that first night was astonishing: The welcoming atmosphere at the town’s hastily setup gathering place, the big room with its tables, chairs and tissues, the food, the system for imparting crucial information, the grief counsellors, the tears and the embraces as the night got darker, darker, darker.
The concession at the arena stayed open all weekend, but everything was free: There was a place to donate, if you wished, but otherwise, they fed all comers without charging a cent.
Sticks in doorways. Ribbons on chests.
Businesses pitched in — hotels, grocery stores, restaurants giving what they had and expecting nothing in return.
Cameras and storytellers proliferated as media outlets flew in from across North America. Their people, here for the first time, were universal in this observance: What a remarkable town, what good people … and how do they maintain this spirit, this level of organization, this universal sense of caring, even as they fight through thick tangles of grief ?
A big, homemade pot of soup sent to the media room one night typified the town.
Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench was inspirational. Broncos president Kevin Garinger, dealing with the death of his beloved billet on top of everything else swirling around him, was a tower of strength.
Team chaplain Sean Brandow delivered a perfect and impassioned message during the April 8 prayer vigil at Elgar Petersen Arena. He’d come upon the crash scene while driving to the game. His close friend, Broncos head coach Darcy Haugan, died on site.
When I called Brandow the next morning, just after 9 a.m., to see if he’d have some time to talk, he said sure — but make sure to arrive at the church before 10 a.m. or it can’t happen.
After that, he said, he was going home to his wife and four kids, ages 10, eight, six and four.
“My kids have had a lot of things they’ve seen and heard and can’t comprehend,” he said later — once he’d finished talking with an NBC news team that had also arrived at Humboldt Bible Church.
“I want to spend time with them, to help them figure it out, let them talk and then just to be together.”
We talked a bit of theology, about the book of Job and anger with God. I asked if the much repeated call to pray for Humboldt said something deeper about the human condition.
“It speaks to the helplessness of the situation, doesn’t it?” he said. “People pray when they don’t know what to do and it shows the heartache of the people a little bit. They want to help, they want to do something so badly, but they don’t know what or how.
“The only thing we can do is just be here for each other, but we pray because we know there’s a comfort that has to come from somewhere else that we can’t give. When people say, ‘I’m praying for Humboldt,’ it’s because they know they don’t have anything at the moment to offer. They need God to intervene there. Pray for Humboldt is a perfect slogan. We need every prayer we can get. Pray for our city.”
Winter’s long grip on Saskatchewan broke up late this week and we feel spring in the air at long last. Spring will give way to summer, then to fall and a new crop of Broncos players will carve their skates into the ice at Elgar Petersen.
Kids who survived that bus crash, with their wide array of injuries and outlooks, will heal bodies and minds as best they can season by season and year by year.
People who died — the woman, the men, the teens — left deep holes in the lives of those who knew them best. Based on massive global outpouring, financial and otherwise, we hope those families find the supports they need, in every way they need them, as they grieve the unfathomable.
On that fateful April 6 night, with grief raw and fresh wreckage littering a ditch a couple of hours away, Mayor Muench took a moment to wrestle with the future.
“What’s this going to bring to our community? How will this affect not only the team itself, but our community? How are we going to deal with this?” he wondered.
Two weeks later, we still don’t know.
But this thought, formed and solidified since the crash, provides some reassurance: It’s Humboldt. And right now, that’s all we need to say.