Tag Archives: tragedy

Schoolyard rules

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There have been hundreds of movies made that include schoolyard bullies. Basically they rule the roost and get away with everything until either one brave kid or a band of misfits decide they aren’t going to take it anymore. Then the bully gets what’s due to him and is put in his place. The movie bully always gets served a good dose of justice and everybody feels good about it.

In the grown up world, away from the playground, away from the movie, big screen happy endings, it doesn’t always end up that way.

No, here a corporation can get away with polluting the land, and causing people to get sick for decades. Here, in the real world, hundreds of people can knowingly cause a housing mortgage crisis that bankrupts millions of people and one, just one scapegoat gets some jail time, while the rest got years of bonuses.

And now we have the Prime Minister of Canada being disrespectfully called the 51st Governor, and the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. We have a man in the most powerful position in the world conducting peace talks with another bully, while simultaneously leaving the victim out of the talks and wrongfully identifying the victim as starting the fight.

I don’t see a movie ending to this. I see a bully getting away with what he wants for about 4 years. Sure there will be pushback, but all bullies do when they are pushed back is double down. No apologies, no remorse, no change in behavior. The world has digressed to schoolyard rules, and is severely lacking in adult supervision.

We aren’t living in a feel good revenge of the nerds style movie, we are living in a Shakespearean tragic comedy. There will be laughs along the way, but when the show comes to an end the outcome for those involved will be very disappointing.

If we want to see the feel good movie ending, it won’t be one hero protagonist saving the day. No it will be the band of brothers all standing up to the schoolyard bully. It will be all the kids in the schoolyard saying, ‘That’s enough!” It will be his own little gang deciding that he’s not worth supporting. It didn’t happen the first time around, maybe it will happen this time… but I’m not betting on it. I’m looking around the school yard and I just don’t see enough kids banding together, and I definitely don’t see enough adult supervision.

Gone in an instant

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It’s tragic when it happens. Most recently in the news it was a bridge in Baltimore. A barge lost power and hit a bridge and it collapsed, killing several workers on the bridge. One minute they are going about their job, and then their lives are over. No warning, no forethought. Living one moment, gone the next.

I was recently on vacation and watched a few sunrises. That time of day is busy for birds on the hunt for fish. There is no glare from the sun, and many small fish are feeding near the shore. Here is a slow motion video of a bird diving for food.

Imagine the life of a small fish. You are among many other fish, feeding and going about your morning, and suddenly, most abruptly, a foreign beast plunges into your world and snatches you up. Seconds later you slide down inside of a bird’s neck and into its stomach where you suffocate before being digested.

No warning, no hint of pending doom. It’s part of the life cycle of many living things. We are fortunate that it is not frequent for us as apex predators. Still, it happens, and it’s totally unfair, even random. A fall from a ladder, a car accident, an allergic reaction, a plane crash, a freak accident.

We are fortunate not to be small fish, with far greater likeliness to come to a tragic, early, unexpected demise, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thankful for the time we are given, and appreciate the luck we have to live a good life every day that we are given. It can be seen as scary or it can be seen as cathartic… knowing that we can be gone in an instant.

Just imagine it was your kid

We aren’t talking about ancient history. The last Residential School closed in the 1980’s. Imagine it was your kid that was forcefully removed from you to be taken to a school that abused and/or killed him or her.

“The [Kamloops Indian Residential School] was established in 1890 and in operation until 1969, when it was taken over by the federal government from the Catholic Church to be used as a day school residence. It closed in 1978. The school building still stands today, and is located on the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. In May 2021, the remains of 215 children buried in a mass grave were found at the site.” Wikipedia

There is nothing more to say. Imagine it was your kid that didn’t make it home after being torn away from you. Imagine that it was the government that took your child away from you. Some don’t have to imagine this like you have to. It happened to their kid; to their brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends; to their unknown uncles and aunts.

It happened to families in our community. Their kids are our kids. We mourn their loss. We mourn our loss. If you don’t feel the loss, it’s because you haven’t imagined what it would be like if it was your kid.