I find myself wondering quite often what it's like to wake up on the morning of the day which has been chosen for you to end your life, along with the lives of as many other people as you possibly can.
Believing that heaven awaits you at the end of this task, I wonder if the air you breathe has already begun to smell a little sweeter and the food you taste just that much more delectable as you begin what you know are the final steps to this glorious outcome. I wonder if excitement broils in you.
If there was a time when you doubted you could perform this task, how long ago was that and who or what intervened in such a way that you had now become fully resolute in your lives-ending mission?
Does it feel as though you've become something more than a man? Do your insides pulse with what you can only imagine to be the sown seeds of divinity?
What is your ability to actually fail at your task? What if it just doesn't feel like a good day to die, or maybe even the right day? Are there do-overs, do you get to go back to your friends or associates and say something like sorry, guys, just having kind of an off day here but I'm gonna give her another go tomorrow? Or could it be that they will kill you, regardless, so why not aim for that heaven thing while you're at it?
Are you allowed to say goodbye to anyone, apart from the group who has helped you along this path?
What if you are in the exact spot you're meant to be in order to set the bomb off and all of the sudden your sister appears beside you? Or your uncle? Or an old school chum and what kind of small talk do you engage in with that old school chum anyway? Would there be any attempt to ward off these people, should they appear?
The more I consider suicide bombers, the more questions I have.
Occasionally you hear about the target being missed, the bomb seems to detonate accidentally and the only person who dies is the bomber himself. You almost want to cheer when this happens, one of those in your face, sucker kinds of moments. Is it possible, though, that some of these failed attempts might only be the end result of last-second changes of heart? Could it be that reason took over? Or maybe even a little bit of humanity? And, if so, how awful to know you simply cannot return where you came from without detonating a bomb, even if you are the only one who will die from it.
Whatever the motivation, whatever the reasoning behind it all, there will continue to be instances of individuals insinuating themselves among crowds of people and letting death and destruction ensue. There will not be a plethora of pictures with this blog post. A quick search on the internet provided no suicide bomber pictures which were suitable to publish here---nothing but mayhem and body parts.
Out of all of this, then, who ends up in heaven and who doesn't? My own personal belief is that anybody who dies ends up somewhere heaven-like. This would apply as much to the bomber as to the ones killed by him. Nobody knows, of course but what we do know is that there is this little bit of pointless hell left behind for the rest of us to deal with.
Earlier on this week, a typewritten letter on pink paper made its way into the news, big-time.
It was a letter full of invective, which had made its way to the doorstep of a household in Newcastle. The woman who lived in the house was the grandmother of an autistic boy, Max, who had been staying with her. The letter was from an anonymous neighbour who objected to the presence of Max in her neighbourhood.
The grandmother brought the letter to the attention of the police, it then found its way into the news and then, instantly, on to social media.
It was a letter that was almost physically difficult to read, as full as it was with hatred and ignorance. It was also a reminder that, though we think we live in an enlightened age, there are those of us out there still dwelling, for whatever reasons, in very dark places.
I have worked for over thirty years with intellectually challenged people, many of whom have autistic tendencies or disorders. Relatives and close friends of ours have children with autism. I know that taking the time to look beyond what might seem like a challenging behaviour on the outside will generally result in finding out just how "normal" a person actually is and, in fact, may lead to discovering a world of wonder nestled there on the inside.
The anonymous woman who wrote this letter and then felt empowered to actually deliver it does not have this same ability.
Not surprisingly, the tables have now been turned. Howls of protest all over the printed press and social media have been directed at this woman and my understanding is that the police are investigating. Many have called for this woman, once she is discovered, to be charged with a hate crime. According to the authorities, the woman's actions meet all the criteria for a hate crime except for one--it was an action taken in private and was not meant for public dispersal or consumption. Notwithstanding this, the police are investigating the possibility of charging her with other crimes, e.g. public mischief.
Charges or not, the worst punishment this woman will suffer, however, is simply being found out. I suspect that hanging out with the autistic kid next more might suddenly seem way more comfortable than hanging out with the rest of the neighbours! It will be hard to feel sorry for her.
I do, however, feel sorry for her.
As much as the world has come to the defense and support of Max and his family, the woman who wrote the letter is now on an island and, I'm fairly certain, is feeling trapped there. She is trapped there by her own actions but I suspect she has been hardwired to respond the way she has. People are generally a product of their life experiences and I can't help but wonder what might have gone on in this woman's life to make her so pre-disposed to this amount of anger and hatred.
What, if anything, has she been taught about acceptance and understanding? What must have gone on in her life on an almost daily basis which might have, in turn, bred this vitriol? How truly damaged must this woman be? Almost as importantly, what is she teaching her children? I find it sad that being so enmeshed in what her life needs to be like that she becomes this angry (and almost panicky) at the thought of the new and unknown disrupting it.
Because she does seem so damaged, I hesitate to hurl anything her way. Some of what I've seen being said about her by the shocked masses comes way too close to echoing the types of things she herself has said about Max. There used to be what she thought was a pariah in her neighbourhood, an autistic boy she had no wish to try to understand. Now that she herself has become the true pariah, it only behooves us to afford her at least an attempt to offer the kind of understanding she was unable to afford Max.
Autistic Boy meets Damaged Woman.
Autistic Boy wins!
The other day I walked into an apartment building in west London. I walk into this building at least once a week in order to see one of the people my agency supports. I've been coming to this building regularly for over twenty years now and, in fact, lived in it myself for a year almost eight years ago.
That day, as I walked in, the building had now become the site of a double homicide this past Easter weekend.
This was a surreal experience. The murders and disposition of the bodies, from all the news accounts, were grisly and not even discovered until the smell of decomposition began to permeate the building. The only suspect has been arrested and charged.
It is not the same building anymore. I spoke at length with the person I support and he is having a difficult time coping. This was not hard to understand. The whole atmosphere of the apartment complex seems to have changed. There did not seem to be as many people around, and there were not the same smiling faces I am used to seeing. The person I support said this has been the case since the murders were discovered. He says his friends in the building, many of whom we support as well, are also suffering varying amounts of anxiety and fear. It's almost as if the building itself has died its own little death and is pondering how and when to rise up again.
We have gone out of our way to describe the murders as very isolated incidences, committed by one person against other persons he knew. We have also said that the chances of this happening again in that building are infinitesimal and that the same chances would be just as good anywhere else you might want to move to. I don't know that any of this helped and I'm not sure that I really expected it to.
For myself, I'm pretty sure that if I were in the market for an apartment I wouldn't hesitate to move back into this building. It could be that this is easy for me to say because I haven't just had my living space defiled in such an egregious manner. Or it could be that I've been able to compartmentalize these murders and shunt them off elsewhere.
As much as I might want to think that eventually everything will blow over and return more or less to normal, it's still hard to convey this to someone who is in the middle of it right now.
A few years ago, a young man and two young boys were killed in a horrific car crash at an intersection in a rural area near London. This intersection is on the way to the school in Delaware I've been driving my stepkids to for the last seven years or so. For a while they asked me to go a different way--they had heard all the news reports and felt uncomfortable passing by the scene where it had happened. I didn't have a problem taking a different route but eventually the talk about the accident faded away and we returned to driving past the scene. Even though we do this, however, it is difficult to see the small crosses which have been erected there and not be taken somewhere unpleasant, all over again.
So there are spaces around us all which, if not actually haunted themselves, still haunt us with the memories we associate them with. I doubt very much whether I will ever be able to enter that west London building without thinking about what happened there. I do only need to go in it once a week--the tenants of the building will enter it constantly and lie there in their beds imagining all manner of thing. Or not---we are all individuals and cope differently with such traumatic experiences.
I can only hope that the people who live in that complex do eventually come to grips with this tragedy and move on. Whether they do this emotionally, physically or a combination of both, I hope they do find a way to separate the evil that goes on in some persons' lives from the all the good which goes on in their own.
My modus operandi for writing blog posts is pretty basic--I realize that a thought is consistently running through my head and, if I think I have anything worthwhile to say about it, I sit down and get busy writing.
I have been avoiding this process for the last few days, however, simply because the most persistent thought in my head has been the massacre of twenty young children.
This, I think, has been inescapable for most of us. It's the time of year when we should all be involved in some kind of holiday preparation but the pall hanging over Newtown, Connecticut surely has enveloped us all. Random acts of violence are not uncommon anymore but this particular act hits harder and more bitterly than most.
The fact that we lost children and lost them in such a manner is what rends us. It would have been horrific enough to have lost them in a school bus accident or a building collapse but the notion that an individual planned their deaths and then carried out that plan seems unfathomable.
Along with all this pain comes politics. In our agony, we feel the desire to take a line of action that will fix things, prevent the pain from afflicting us again. Amidst all this, what you get is reaction mixed with over-reaction and, quite possibly, inaction.
It's difficult to say whether or not, politically, things will change in the States. At the moment there are calls for greater gun control and there are calls for a greater mental health care presence. Regardless, in a world full of evil ways to commit murder, the unthinkable will occasionally continue to befall us.
Volumes have been written already about this tragedy and most of my inner conflicting feelings have been voiced. In light of this, I have nothing new to offer, really. My first reaction is that the perpetrator should be as anonymous as possible. I truly don't know that we have anything else to learn about what motivates people to perform such acts and to have this person's face, name and history pasted all over the place seems to serve no purpose. Frankly, if there were a way to expunge him totally from our collective consciousness, then that would be fine with me. At that point, we could concentrate solely on lives of the children and the teachers who were lost.
The twenty children, in an effort to explain what has happened principally to other children who are still with us, are now being referred to as angels. This seems to be the most hopeful outcome we can have for them. I am blessed with never having lost a child so I don't know how much suffering this angelic declaration alleviates. I suspect it helps, but not much, and maybe not this soon. My own belief is that these children are somewhere now where they will be eternally safe and loved. Perhaps this is not far off from being angels.
I could have gotten away with not writing anything about this tragedy. I am not sure that anyone wishes to read anything more about it, anyway. Given the prevalence with which it has been in my thoughts lately, however, I would have been dishonest not to address it here, in writing.
I am posting a picture of the victims, along with their names. This certainly needs doing and perhaps is reason enough for this post. Their killer will be nameless, at least in this forum. This also needs doing.
 |
| Lone Ranger and Tonto |
I can understand the fascination with guns. When I was a kid I myself was fascinated by guns. Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Paladin and Wyatt Earp all used guns effectively and glamourously. Silver bullets and the Buntline Special were cool. The Rifleman was cool. And no-one ever got killed.
So I got my friends and our machine guns and pistols and we would race around the house or deep into the woods and we would shoot each other over and over and we never killed anyone either. No blood, apart from maybe scraped knees, and no death.
This was fine but I'm not sure what it taught us, if anything. Not that we were out to be taught anything, we were just kids, having fun.
When I say there was "no death" I'm not including the incident with the pellet gun. A friend if mine had a pellet gun and one day we were shooting it out of his second floor bedroom window. There was a sparrow on a wire, probably about 20 feet away. I truly only meant to scare him from the wire, with the pellet gun. Instead, I killed him. Like a target in a carnival sideshow, it flipped over, hung upside down by its feet for about five seconds and then dropped to the ground, dead.
I was horrified.
I have never in my life intended to harm, let alone kill, any kind of animal. Having then accidentally killed a small bird, this feeling in me was even more intensely imprinted, to this very day.
This is the reality of guns.
A few days ago, a man with a gun killed another man in the Eaton Centre in Toronto. He opened fire in a food court and not only killed his intended victim but wounded many other bystanders in the process. One thirteen year old boy ended up in critical condition with a head wound.
The reality of guns was foisted upon those innocent and unsuspecting people that day, people whose only purpose in being there at that time and place was to shop and then chow down for more shopping.
Who knows what the toll was on those people? I imagine anyone who suffered a physical injury will recover, in time. What might take much longer to heal is the psychological and emotional trauma of not only the injured that day but likely anyone who was in the vicinity and saw the violence or experienced the panic which ensued. The incident will give us all lingering doubts as to where the safe places are.
I know that in our house there exists somewhat of a cavalier attitude around guns. Guns and things associated with them are considered cool. Guns have been used to kill animals. On our T.V., shows that take guns and make them into even bigger and better guns are among the most popular. There was no shock or disgust displayed when a newspaper article about the Eaton Centre killing was read, in fact there was almost tacit approval of the gunman's shooting ability.
All this because there is no true understanding of the depth and nature and effect of this kind of violence, likely because it has never hit close to home. The same way it is difficult to understand the effect of a beating unless you have been beaten yourself.
A gun or a rifle enables you to enter a cause and effect relationship with an enemy from a distance. Before guns it was arrows. Before arrows, various forms of armed combat existed which required the participants to actually touch each other, to look into each other's eyes during battle. This was distasteful so now we have guns. Not to mention missiles, rocket launchers, bombs and mines. Things that will kill your enemy without you needing to actually be there and see the result or perhaps even find out that he is actually stronger than you are. It is almost a cowardly way to kill.
Yes, I am pretty tired of guns. I'm tired of constantly seeing them pulled out on T.V. and in movies. I've been watching them for so many years now I know exactly how to hold them and exactly what kind of burn marks they leave if you kill a person at point blank. I know about bullet trajectories and SWAT team tactics and how to "clear" a building and on and on. If somehow or other I were a T.V. or movie producer, I would ban them with no reservations. And, in my wildest fantasies, if I could teach deer, ducks, geese, bears and moose how to shoot back I would do so, in a heartbeat.
I sat in a Timmie's the other day, had a double-double and engaged in a coffee shop chat with a friend. I can't even tell you how many times the two of us have done this and there are thousands of us across Canada who do this on a daily basis.
Normally the conversations touch on the mundane--our plans for the weekend, the weather, how our days are shaping up, how our common acquaintances are getting along and the like.
We don't normally get into deep, almost philosophical discussions about anything really, we kind of see our visits to Tim's as being kind of a break from all of that. The other day, though, was different.
My friend had been listening to some of the details of an ongoing court case here in London, that of the alleged killer of Victoria (Tori) Stafford. For those of you who might not be from my part of Canada, Tori Stafford was a young girl from Woodstock who was abducted from her school as it let out, taken by car to the Guelph area, sexually assaulted in the back seat of the car and then murdered, with a claw hammer. The accused's girlfriend has already been tried and convicted of first-degree murder and has provided the description of how Tori's life ended. The people of London and the surrounding area have been assaulted themselves by the details of the case, which have been outlined daily in the papers. None of us have been spared the grisly details and I would guess that many of us have stopped reading, for our own reasons.
My friend felt compelled to talk about this case today, as we sat there over our coffees.
He is someone who angers easily when it comes to the victimization of anyone, particularly the young and defenseless and he felt compelled that day to offer his opinion as to how the perpetrators of this crime should be ultimately punished. Without a doubt, he thought, they should be executed.
I'm sure many of us feel the same way, in our disgust and anger. It is almost impossible not to. These days, though, capital punishment is not an option, rightly or wrongly, and we are left with what seem like inappropriate options for dealing with these kinds of perpetrators. The fact that it will be our responsibility for likely many years to come to house, feed and protect her killers has riled my friend and many others. Our only option is to make sure that these people are never allowed to do the same thing to anyone else.
Personally, I have always been against capital punishment. I understand the disgust, heartbreak and anger which some crimes cause. The contradiction that capital punishment presents to me is that on one hand we see murder as being the most heinous of crimes. The measured response to murder that capital punishment suggests is to murder someone, yet again. If, in fact, murder is bad then we need to ensure that we do not engage in it.
I presented this as a point of view to my friend and he admitted that he hadn't really looked at that way. But, indeed, if I were the family member of someone who'd been murdered then I'm not so sure I'd feel so merciful, either.
At the end of our discussion, I suggested a totally different option. I suggested, in this particular case, simply letting the murderers go free! My friend looked at me in shock. I explained in the following manner.
Envision a courtroom scene wherein Tori's killers have been convicted and are awaiting sentencing. As a sentence, the judge tells the two of them, in the midst of a room jam-packed with Tori's family, friends and well-wishers that they are free to go. And at that point, the judge, bailiffs and any attending police officers simply walk away.
My friend understood what I was suggesting and smiled.
I suppose this might be justice in the purest sense; the consequences you suffer are commensurate with the crime you commit.
This, of course, will not happen, nor should it.
This is more or less where our talk ended at Tim's that day. It wasn't what we usually end up chatting about. I will wager that at some point that day another couple or group of coffee-drinkers sat and talked about Tori and quite likely expressed the same outrage and bemoaned the whole justice system. I also imagine opinions were offered on why people like her killers even exist in this world, what can be done to identify them earlier and what can be done with them afterwards.
As you might have noticed, I have not named either the current defendant or his accomplice. I did not choose to leave them nameless due to any regard for their anonymity. I believe that one of the rights you have as a human is the right to a name. I believe that when you begin to act in a sub-human way then you have given up the right to be referred to by name. At least, in this blog. So be it.
Okay, I didn't intend to spend so much of this blog talking about Tori Stafford. I kind of meant to spend this time talking more about how coffee shops serve as community sounding boards and, more simply, as places of congregation. All that for another day, I guess. In the meantime, I have graced this page with pictures of Tori. It seems as though lately I've talked about nothing but death, dying and the afterlife. I really meant to do something different today but such was not the case, as it turns out. Her pictures have helped. They have helped by taking some of the ugliness away.
I find myself wondering quite often what it's like to wake up on the morning of the day which has been chosen for you to end your life, along with the lives of as many other people as you possibly can.
