CALLOUS ACTS PUT TRUST AT STAKE

A person who is susceptible to substance abuse can be forgiven for
losing her way again when great tragedy strikes.

What is less forgivable are callous acts that suggest the underlying
character of the person is deeply flawed.

The local community opened its hearts and wallets to Patricia Wallick,
then known as Patricia Johnson, and her young family when their time
of crisis struck in early 2006.

Nina Johnson, 15, a healthy girl in January was bedridden by February
with a serious heart defect. Her mother took leave from her job and
travelled to Vancouver for the spring to be close to Nina while she
underwent a heart transplant.

The teenager, described as a bright light by her friends and teachers,
died of complications in July. It was a terrible blow to her mother
and siblings and to Kamloops as a whole.

During her illness, community fundraising events went on non-stop as
people raised money for the David Foster Foundation, which provides
financial and emotional help to families of children needing organ
transplants.

Therefore, it was shocking earlier this year to discover that Wallick
was facing drug-related and theft charges. Some people wondered
whether their contributions had gone toward a drug habit. They did
not. Others were sympathetic to Wallick's troubles and called upon
critics to consider the trauma she had been through with the loss of
her daughter.

Drug addicts suffer their own kind of hell. They engage in behaviour
they never would do as a sober person. A deep personal crisis will
send them over the bend. But none of this excuses unconscionable actions.

Wallick was supported in her time of need by the kind people of B.C.'s
Heart Transplant Home Society. She lived rent-free in a furnished
apartment in Vancouver for three months so she could be near her daughter.

She refused to leave until she was evicted and then stole $2,000 in
furniture and household items as well as causing $1,000 worth of
damage to the unit. The founder of the society, Ron Bayne, a
transplant survivor himself, called it a lesson in life.

"We take it that guests will be happy with the gift of life and be
thankful," he said.

For six years, that was the case. The society offered its services to
grateful recipients to help them make it through a desperate time
without financial worry. Just this one time, the kindness was returned
with completely callous behaviour.

The court has ordered Wallick to write a letter of apology to the
society, but it will mean little if she does not realize the damage
she did with her betrayal of trust.

If she does express properly the regret we hope she feels, that might
go a long way in restoring the society's faith in the people it helps.