Little Flavie, 14 months old and safe in the tranquility of her parents' farm, is blissfully unaware that last summer, she became a great source of comfort to residents of Lac-Megantic.

The town’s farmer’s market used to set up shop downtown. After the rail disaster, it reopened one week later as a much smaller affair in front of the high school.

“People were so happy to see us, to have this place to come together,” said Isabelle Couturier, a goat cheese artisan.

Many who came to the market had lost their homes in the disaster.

“People came only to share, to share the life,” she explained.

And a symbol of that life was her infant daughter -- Flavie was passed from one set of open arms to another. Couturier called her the “community baby.”

The seasonal market opened again in Lac-Megantic a few weeks ago, but it's not like it was.

“It's my downtown too - and it's hard to see that it's not there anymore,” she said.

And nothing has risen in its place.

Taking a break in between calls, veteran Lac Megantic paramedic and firefighter Andre Laflamme gazes out at the desolate disaster zone.

That night a year ago Sunday, he was on call with the fire department.

“When we had the big blowup at four o'clock in the morning, I was scared. That's the first time in 36 years that I was scared of dying,” he said.

“I lost one of my good friends and on 47 who died, I must have known like 35.”

Sometimes, he has trouble sleeping. He sought help, but says the tragedy changed him.

But Lac Megantic's families have been changed most of all.

It’s hard for Jean Clusiault to believe he last saw his daughter Kathy one year ago.

“Time's going very fast. It seems to me like it was just yesterday,” he said

At 24, Kathy was planning to set up a massage therapy business in her hometown. But in the early hours of July 6th, Clusiault got a call from his younger daughter Kim. She told him not to worry, but that they were looking for Kathy.

“I said- oh, it's too late. So starting that time I was sure that it was over. I didn't expect a miracle- I was sure,” he said.

He drove to the high school, which had become a gathering place and a shelter.

“The first person I want to see is my daughter Kim, I don't want to talk to anyone. Then I took Kim in my arms and said girl, we have to be strong,” he recounted.

A year has passed and he is still trying to be strong. He says not a minute passes by that he doesn't have a flash of Kathy.

“Faith, family and friends. And me I'm lucky. I've got a lot of people around me, but I know that some people are very, very alone,” he said.

Alone, and suffering -- pharmacist Claude Charron tries to be there for everyone as he did last year when he immediately set up a temporary pharmacy for the town.

“We're seeing more prescriptions for anti-depressants and we see more pills for sleeping aids at night - life is not as usual,” he said.

“People are stressed and anxious. I know a few families that got separated, divorced because there's tension.”

Charron also feels the strain. His former store is still intact, but cut off, on a downtown strip that now resembles a ghost town.

“At first, everybody was saying we're going to help you, we're going to help you, and now we have to ask for help,” he said.

There are signs of recovery -- a boardwalk is being built along the downtown core, an ice cream shop has reopened, and of course the trains are back in a limited capacity, serving local industry.

But signs on these scarred oak trees that stand next to the police perimetre speak to the fragility of the town. They read "don't touch me. I'm a recovering burn victim. Let me rest."

Clusiault has moments when he too, feels fragile.

“I saw a father playing tennis with his young daughter nine, ten years (old), and his daughter said, "Papa!" and it remind me Kathy and the same age. It was just like the same sound, so when I hear it a few tears (fell),” he said.

The tears of a still-grieving father, remembering a voice he'll never hear aloud again.