Appreciative

Last week we got our first bill for BC health insurance. It pays us forward to February. The other day we got our health insurance cards in the mail. And it triggered a wave of appreciation for me.

The card's face says, in big letters, Care Card. On the bottom, it has my name on it. It seems to imply, "We care about you, MICHAEL PATRICK NELSON." And as a new immigrant, that means a lot. We've been busy (and still are busy) with all the details of settling - creating accounts, finding housing, finding furniture, finding work - so it's been easy to overlook the fact that, hey, we're living in Canada now.

So I signed the back of the card. I signed it carefully and joyfully. Then I let it sit to dry, being careful not to smudge it. I remembered way back when Hilary Clinton held up a prototype US health card, and thought, Now I have one. (Though the NHS in the UK is brilliant too - no card needed, and no bill either.)

This, and a few yoga stretches, contributed to this sudden onset of appreciation. A realization of, hey, we've spent a lot of money and filled out a lot of forms and waited a long time to be here, and now we're here.

I took time to appreciate some other tokens of identity and belonging. A coffee card. My Rogers Video card. (Okay, that's not so special.) And the currency. I happened to have a 5, 10, and 20 dollar bill each. And you know what? I've never taken the time to really look at them. And they're fascinating! Lots of colours. There's the face of a historical government figure on the front (except the Queen on the 20 - she's not exactly historical yet), plus a drawing of some feature of the Parliament buildings. And such fine patterns in the background! And a hologram strip! On the back are more drawings. One bill portrays a family, ice skating, happy and enjoying their Canadian lives.