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Looking back on the events that shape one’s life, it is often not easy to pinpoint an exact time or person who featured prominently in helping you become the person that you are.
Jimmy Carter is remember for his positive impact by a Canadian who worked at the centre he helped found to better the lives of others.
Looking back on the events that shape one’s life, it is often not easy to pinpoint an exact time or person who featured prominently in helping you become the person that you are.
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For me though, that is not so much the case. In 2008, this Canadian was accepted as a four-month intern at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia where I met former American president Jimmy Carter.
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Having applied to work at an institution that I long admired, I was not sure that I would ever see its namesake. I was wrong, so wrong. Not only heavily invested in the organization which bore his name but in those of us who worked there, it seemed almost unusual to go a week without seeing him.
With a work ethic that men half his age would struggle with and with his faith and wife Rosalynn constantly by his side, he did more positive for the world than most will ever know, often without fanfare or accolades. Indeed, this selflessness of time and spirit towards the greater good was inspiring.
There will forever be those offering opinions on the life and times of president Carter and that is their prerogative, but I will always remember the man I met at this time as someone who frankly cared not only about the world, but about all who lived in it.
I wondered how anyone could not be motivated to become better by just having had the opportunity to know him.
As I watch his funeral this week, I will not only be thinking of the president Carter who was known to the greater part of the populace, but the president Carter I knew.
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That president Carter I first met three days after starting at the Carter Center. At an intern retreat in Plains, Georgia, Carter waved a young Canadian man over to dine at his table in a diner to talk not about politics but about life and who inspired him to become the man he is now.
Now it is left to us who remain to take up his mantle and go forward into an unknown future thinking of humanity and practising humility instead of hubris to best represent who we are as a society. A people who believe in we, not just me.
It is in doing this that we will best celebrate the legacy that president Carter is leaving and go ahead looking forward to what is to come by acknowledging what we are all capable of, a world of peace and understanding — indeed, a shared society capable of infinite possibilities and a future that we can all be proud of, one that benefits us all.
As he is laid to rest in Plains, Georgia, I will be thinking of not only this, but wondering if he ever knew the positive impact that he had on this Canadian’s life. Probably not, but he does now. Goodbye president Carter. You will be missed.
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My condolences go out to the Carter family, the Carter Center family and to the people of the United States of America for their loss.
Daniel Sturby has a master’s degree in international development studies and a master’s degree in library and information studies. He worked as an international development expert and lives in Saskatoon.
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