A sad day for a Liberal leader who placed his dying wife before his career
On Monday May 1 2006 the wife of former Nova Scotia Liberal party leader Danny Graham died after a long battle with thyroid cancer. I have heard/seen many people over the last few years claim that the only thing Liberals believe in is power and that they place all other considerations below that priority, especially anything remotely resembling family values. Well Danny Graham is one example of just how partisanly bogus that claim is. This man was the leader of the party for 20 months and fought an uphill election despite finding out the day before the election was called that his wife had cancer. Instead of using that for political sympathy/advantage he kept it to himself. After the election when it became clear that the treatment did not succeed in dealing with her cancer Danny Graham resigned first his leadership and eventually his seat in the Legislature so as to be able to spend his time caring for his dying wife and help their children deal with this profoundly painful event. To me that is true family values in action, something many politicians claim they value most but so few ever show in practice when push comes to shove. Danny Graham did, and he has both my respect for it and my most profound sympathies for both his loss and the painful experience/realities caring for a terminally ill loved one brings with it that he met in the most honourable of manners.
This Province lost a good politician and a potentially good Premier when Graham resigned. I hope that once his grieving period has passed, however long he needs to take for it, that he comes back into politics for he is the type of politician and political leader we need more of in our system For today though and for the time to come I salute his courage, his nobility of spirit and his clear love of family and for his wife, and I hope he understands that many Nova Scotians mourn with him, both those that knew him or her and those of us that only knew them from afar. His wife, Sheelagh Nolan, was a very beloved lady by all accounts of those that knew her, and the clear love of her husband and children only underscore this. The world is a poorer place for her passing, and this little entry is my only way to pay tribute to her and to her remarkable husband.
This Province lost a good politician and a potentially good Premier when Graham resigned. I hope that once his grieving period has passed, however long he needs to take for it, that he comes back into politics for he is the type of politician and political leader we need more of in our system For today though and for the time to come I salute his courage, his nobility of spirit and his clear love of family and for his wife, and I hope he understands that many Nova Scotians mourn with him, both those that knew him or her and those of us that only knew them from afar. His wife, Sheelagh Nolan, was a very beloved lady by all accounts of those that knew her, and the clear love of her husband and children only underscore this. The world is a poorer place for her passing, and this little entry is my only way to pay tribute to her and to her remarkable husband.
posted by Scotian | 1:09 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for posting that, Scotian. I was also saddened to hear the news. He seems like a very good man.
Yes he did. I saw the campaign from the inside as I was a volunteer for the local Liberal candidate. There was not a hint within that party of the terrible news he had gotten, he did not use it politically when it certainly could have helped him given the uphill nature of the fight in that election, and he stood first by his family instead of his ambitions. As I said that is something I find all too rare in any political party these days and is something we need to see more of.
Thank you though for the thanks in posting about it, it was something I felt I had to given the deep respect I had for this man's choices and from my own experiences in dealing with a terminally ill loved one. It is never easy and this man never flinched once from what I can tell and that is most admirable.
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