As I write this, I am sitting wrapped up in a blanket with a book and a cup of hot tea in the screened-in porch of a cottage at Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island. It is cool and foggy and there isn’t a breath of wind. The only sounds I can hear are the crows, songbirds, and gulls and other shorebirds, the occasional hum of the hummingbirds as they hover at their feeder, and the gentle rain. I have been watching the resident Canada Goose family, with four little fluffy babies, swimming and eating the new grass in front of the cottage. The tide has been coming in since I got up a little after 6 a.m. It couldn’t be any calmer or more placid, and right now, the events in Moncton seem a world and a lifetime away.
I don’t want to make what happened in Moncton any more tragic by claiming that I am personally involved. I didn’t know any of the Mounties who were shot, I don’t know the shooter or any of his family or friends.
Yet somehow I feel as if I were personally involved. Moncton is the city where I shop, eat out, have medical appointments, and go to sports and cultural events. It has been our city centre for the past 21 years. We recognized almost every location that was shown in footage and photographs, and we know exactly where the shooting occurred, and which area was locked down. Some of the RCMP officers from my town were among those who responded after the shooting, and we have friends across the country who are officers in the RCMP and other police forces. We know people in the area which was locked down, and others who live in other Moncton neighbourhoods. Moncton is a small city. This isn’t supposed to happen in a small city. It isn’t supposed to happen in Moncton.
And yet it did. And the truth is, it could happen again in Moncton. It could happen in the small town where I live. It could happen in your neighbourhood, town or city. We are not immune from the issues that contribute to violence and tragic death. We feel as if we are, because we know our neighbours and we live in small, “safe” communities. Things like this only happen in big American cities.
Right?
Each time there is a tragic event like this one, especially in Canada, we feel sad and shocked, and ask questions about our society and our collective values, and wonder how this could ever happen. We Canadians pride ourselves on having a more caring society than our American neighbours. Is the fact that we are still so shocked by inexplicable real-life violence proof of that? I’m not sure it is.
The tragedy of the Moncton events is that three men are now dead. Their families have lost their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. The deeper tragedy is that even in our supposedly “safe” small towns and cities, there are people who are so hopeless or so angry or so unwell, that shooting someone with the intent of killing them is somehow the only action they feel they can take. These people live among us. Do we see them or hear them or even notice them enough to be concerned for them?
Last weekend, I attended a lecture by a psychiatrist who works in the Emergency Department of the regional children’s hospital. She told us that what children in crisis need most from the adults around them is to be present, and to be heard. Later, I came across a quotation in a crime novel I was reading. The Swedish detective was trying to find answers to a crime that involved South Africans, former Soviets, and other immigrant and foreign nationalities, and was getting frustrated with the different ways that other cultures have in expressing themselves. He realized that "...people... have to be allowed to tell the story their own way... They are often put off by the hurry we're always in, and they think it's a sign of our contempt. Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful of them" (Henning Mankell in The White Lioness – emphasis is mine).
We all have moments when we run into someone, and we instinctively know they want or need to talk. It’s almost impossible most times to interrupt our schedules and stop what we are doing and take the time to really listen. I think it’s also frightening. I have my own issues and priorities and problems, and it is risky to get involved in other people’s affairs. And yet, as part of a community that is supposed to care, isn’t that exactly what I am supposed to do?
I wonder how many more shootings, stabbings, suicides and beatings it will take before we collectively have the time to sit in silence with our neighbours, and take the time to hear their stories. I wonder how many it will take before I have the time.
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