Gold Buffalo

The pin is about an inch around, gold, with a buffalo insignia on it, and University of Manitoba. On the back it says The Class of 1974. It was presented to me when I graduated. But I only know that from memory – I have lost my Nursing Graduation Pin. I wore it on my uniform for decades. After that it was always in the brown keepsake box in my top drawer. It wasn’t until 2019, when I was getting ready to go to my 45th reunion, that I realized it was missing. I ransacked every conceivable drawer, box, cupboard I could think of. But it did not show up.

In the fall of 1970, we, all 100 of us, mostly young women, gathered together in the Bison Building (now torn down) of the University of Manitoba to begin our careers as nurses. Keenly anticipating the excitement and challenges of caring for patients.

Instead we met Miss X. Who promptly told us only half of us would be there 4 years later (she was right). Who called me “Roh” – my last name. Who made me stand on a chair as she pulled the belt off my green and white striped seer sucker nursing student uniform, telling me it wasn’t fitting right, and all of the buttons popped open.

Being a nursing student in the early 70s was better than it had been in the 60s, but we were still considered to be malleable pieces of clay that all of the Miss X’s would shape to be what they thought a nurse should be. There were many rules – we were expected to follow them. The way you wore your hair. The length of your uniform skirt. No jewelry. No make-up. Some of them made sense, lots didn’t.

We rebelled. We sat in the back row of the classroom and simultaneously lit up cigarettes – so that they could not pick on any one of us. We screamed in opposition as they asked our classmates to leave – because they were not suitable, not because they had not met come clearly delineated criteria.

But most of all we put our heads down and did what we had to do. We followed the rules. We did the assignments. We showed up on time for our clinical rotations. We took a deep breath and put needles and catheters into people for the first time; held and fed tiny babies no bigger than our hands; helped women in labour when we had no idea what they were going through. More than half of the time we were terrified we were going to do the wrong thing. Some of our teachers were calm, supportive – clearly talked us through hard situations with clear instructions. Others stood over us waiting for us to fail. Through all of this the magic of caring for people with stories, suffering and happiness began to infiltrate our very being.

As we journeyed through the four years we became bonded together. As we laughed and cried and yelled about what we were experiencing everyday, we came together as friends, colleagues, soulmates, in a way that has not been paralleled at another time in my life.

That is what the pin was all about. The laughter and the tears. The deep friendships formed, and maintained almost 50 years later. That is why it is such a huge loss.