evidence that things are getting better

lessons from remarkable women and how the world is improving

As a little girl in Clam Harbour, my grandmother used a bucket to get water from the well.

In the winter, they put a stone in the bucket to break the ice in order to have water.

One day?

The could afford a hand pump.

This was evidence that things were getting better.

As a girl and young woman, she only had shoes in the winter time.

Now?

She wears shoes year round.

More evidence that things are getting better.

When her mother took ill quite young, there were no painkillers, no medicines. Women from the village used to sit with her while she screamed in agony while my grandmother - still a child - took care of the affairs of the house.

Now?

My mother gets medicine for her auto immune disorder and has lived for fifteen years.

I’ve had fifteen years with my mother, that would have been borrowed time for my great grandmother.

More evidence that things are getting better.

Back then, polio, measles, mumps and rubella ravaged rural Nova Scotia.

Then came the vaccines.

The diseases were eliminated.

Still mor…