Forgotten Until It's Gone

Back when I eight years old, my family and I visited Taras H. Shevchenko Museum and Memorial Park in Oakville. It was the type of visit an eight-year-old could forget 13 years later. I think we visited the Memorial Park because of a festival for the Ukrainian poet. Or maybe we were just in the neighbourhood. The attraction of the park was a bronze statue:



My knowledge of Shevchenko comes from the books on my father's shelf, and the many Saturdays I spent attending Ukrainian school - eleven years of Saturdays; all, I can assure you, joyful. After I graduated from Ukrainian school, I moved Shevchenko mostly to my memories, the one's titled, "Not Really Important." I had long since forgotten some random Sunday afternoon spent in some park, and I didn't think much of a poet I studied for eleven years. I was tired of Shevchenko. Maybe he was tired of me, too.

And then late last year, someone stole Shevchenko from his Memorial Park. When the theft was reported, at first I felt good in a weird way; I had "insider knowledge" - I knew a thing or two about this poet. Then after that bizarre feeling faded, I thought about how the Ukrainian-Canadian community had been robbed of its monument to Ukraine's greatest poet. A few days later, police found the head to the statue. The monument was permanently ruined. The hope it would be found intact was over.

It took the loss of a statue for me to learn that I actually had pride in Shevchenko. When I left Saturday school, I never thought I'd feel anything for the man. A missing statue reminded me what was already there.