Skip to main content

Katrina Blagdon: Trina's Army

 


Just be a good person, love who you can, help where you can, give what you can."

                                                                                                       Trina Blagdon, December 14, 2021

Ask anyone who knows Trina Blagdon, and they will tell you that they have never known a more positive person. While others are trashing their exes, and complaining about the plague, Trina spends her time on Facebook posting positive messages.

But she is so much more than platitudes. Trina is a woman of action. 

She was a soldier for 14 years, and has been to Afghanistan. She saw first hand what suffering was. Like most who served, she kept her suffering to herself, preferring to help others in her military family through the hard times. She took in a girl whose mother was deployed.

"I've never been more scared in my life," Rachel wrote on her Facebook page when Trina went missing. "My rock was leaving, my mom, my best friend. I fell into a pretty deep depression and I would lie in bed at Trina's for days just trying to understand my own feelings and thoughts. 

"You better believe Trina was there daily, getting me up even to get some fresh air. She got me my first job at McDonald's, brought me there with my resume and sat outside until I came back out and I had the job!"

She was there often for many other women who served including Stacey.

"She helped me through a really rough time in my life. She was my friend when nobody else wanted to be. She took me to a Christmas party, brought me to her home, told me to pick out a dress from her closet. She did my hair and makeup and off we went together. 

"I remember on the way there I said to her, 'You don't need to do this.' She replied with a simple smile."

It's been more than 20 days since Katrina disappeared into thin air somewhere between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day after sharing subs with her boyfriend in my hometown of St. Catharines, Ontario.

There are no indications that Katrina was depressed. In fact, she was happily making plans to return to her home in Nova Scotia sometime this month.

And so we ask: why would someone as happy as Trina, so full of love for others, so delighted in being a mom, and a veteran, and a woman with a bright future, disappear in the middle of the night without a car, without her wallet, without any cellular activity?

As a veteran, Katrina had resilience built into her. She knew that if she was in trouble, she could reach out just as her friends so often reached out to her. She knew her military family had her back. 

She also had tons of support from her loving parents, sisters and baby brother, her sons, her friends.

I am sure she would have connected, if she could.

Which leads me to darker thoughts. Sometimes an unexpected malevolent wind blows through when it's least expected. Sometimes, that wind blows from a place where we seek love and shelter.

Sometimes your enemy comes from within.

We hope, against all odds, that Katrina will be found safe and sound. 

In the meantime, we will continue to knock on doors, comb the fields, and review the tapes. 

We are Katrina's Army. We will never give up.

And she will not be left behind. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What Bell isn't telling you about Fibe TV

Update: This week, we switched back to Rogers after spending far too long using Bell's crappy television service. For those with Bell, read and weep. For those considering Bell, think twice even if you hate Rogers. RS I've always been an early technology adapter. I had a Betamax. That tells you everything (if you're over 50 at least). My first computer was a "Portable". It weighed 40 pounds and I had to lug it around town on a gurney. I've been through probably 15 computers in my lifetime. Apple is the best. It's also too expensive so I have a piece of shit HP, the one I'm writing this blog on. I've had cable, internet and now Netflix. American Netflix . That's how far ahead of the curve I am. I get all the newspapers for free. How? I disabled my cookies so they can't track me when I'm on the newspaper sites. Even the New York Times hasn't cottoned on to that trick. Hahaha. That will be a fifty buck consulting fee. Bein...

Ashley Simpson: Please sign this petition to help her family

Those who read this space regularly know that my family is frantic with worry about my cousin, Ashley Simpson , who has been missing 40 days now. Both her boyfriend and her landlord reported that she had left with no money, no car, no resources from her Salmon Arm, B.C. home after a domestic dispute over money. Since then, there has been no trace of her. The RCMP now considers this a homicide investigation, but the family has not heard any updates from them in more than three weeks. Just after she disappeared, her father, relatives and friends set out from St. Catharines on a long trek to B.C. to find her. They all left their work, and their lives, intent on finding Ashley who had always kept in touch. It was completely out of character for her to lose touch. Her parents have been consumed by worry. They have been unable to work, and are having a hard time functioning. As a result, they are now relying on donations from family and friends to keep the wolf from the door...

The strange case of Greg Etue

I got out of the daily news reporting game, I'll admit, because I didn't have the stomach to cover the many sad stories that came across my desk. I remember clearly once when I had to call an RCMP sergeant after his young son blew his head off with the officer's service revolver. "Please," he pleaded. "I really can't talk right now." "It was your gun, is that correct?" He slammed down the receiver. I was ashamed of myself. People have a right to some privacy in difficult times like that. I also used to hate having to go to the door of a dead child's home and jostle the competition for a picture. Really, it felt more like ghoulism than journalism. That said, I still believe that these stories must be told in an honest and forthright fashion with all the facts and none of the flourish and emotion that is all the rage in reporting these days. Over the past two years, we, in this community, have been treated to a lot o...