I am at a point now in my life where
I am giving back. I am taking all of my
experiences and I share them on stage with
whoever is willing to listen.
I share them on my Facebook feed.
I am giving back on levels that I never
thought were even possible anymore.
I am now reintegrated with my daughter
who I have, through all of this turmoil,
to have my daughter taken away from me
was just another punch for me wanting
to be done with walking on this earth.
But through the work and being guided and
the people that have come across my path
in my worst and have stuck by me and helped
guide me. I was given the tools to utilize,
it’s that I needed to want to use those tools.
It wasn’t there for people to
continuously be like, “This is what you got
to do Collin, this is what you got to do Collin,
well let me do that for you Collin,
let me do that for you.” It wasn’t going to
work with people constantly,
“Collin, here’s the information.
You take what you need and you
go with that. If you don’t want that
then I can’t do anything for you.”
These are the words,
like I needed somebody in my life to come
in and say like this is it, like it’s done.
I will show you but I am not going
to do the work for you.
You need to do the work.
And it was kind of like an eye opener,
it was like. So I started engaging and
talking about my daughter with people
who were in my life and it was like,
do you want your daughter back in your life?
And I’m like, yes I miss her,
I’m just like I need that like.
Everything else has been torn away from me.
All of my finances, all of my clothes,
my everything. But all the materialistic
things in the world do not equate
to having your own little spawn ripped
away from you. I needed that back.
So in order for me to get that back
I had to start putting in the work and I
started putting in the work. Myself and
my adoptive sister, Kerri Tadeu, she helped
me set up a Devotion to Duty ceremony in
St. Ann’s at the Veteran’s hospital.
My daughter’s school, her classmates,
her principle, the parents, teachers
all came down. General Natynczyk and
many other entities were there to celebrate the
indigenous Veterans that served in the
Canadian Forces along with the World War
Two Veterans, along with the Korea Veterans.
We took a bunch of Veterans and had a
commemorative walk, a 1.58 kilometres.
We incorporated a 1.58 kilometre for the 158
who died in Afghanistan with young people,
old people pushing these Veterans in their
wheelchairs and towards the end with much
hesitation over the last few years,
Kerri somehow managed in her ways to get
the sacrifice medal presented to me by
Genera lNatynczyk. I didn’t want it but
when Kerri looked at me and said,
“Your daughter needs to see this!”
It was just one more thing that I needed to
do in order to help set, reset the wiring
that was twisted. Not only in my brain but
in hers about everything that transpired.
So what we did is we bought one of the
miniature sacrifice medals and Mr. Natynczyk
presented my daughter with the sacrifice medal
because when it’s not just the service member
that serves, it’s the family also and I have a
picture now that I am going to get blown up and
just the joy on my daughter’s face and seeing
that picture because I was standing off to the left,
I didn’t exactly when it was all being done.
But I was sent the picture and it literally
brings joy to my life.