I had planned on staying glued to the news and mourn silently from abroad because my home town of Toronto is Trending on social media for another tragic shooting. One too many all in a few weeks. I’m SAD, SAD, SAD and now angry because my Twitter feed has been peppered that somehow the Danforth Shooting was America’s fault (guns coming across the border)!!
Why do I care because everyone is blaming America for its poor leadership so what’s one more eye poke?
I CARE because my husband and I chose to move our son to the United States last month despite how ‘discriminating, violent and horrible’ a county it is. (Thank you friendly Canadians for pointing that out.)
HOWEVER….
Yesterday, a woman who lives across the street decided to come over just to say hello. This is our first meeting. She wore a red 45 #maga hat. She came back a few hours later with flowers, basils and strawberries, all grown from her garden and a cookie for my son.
In our King West condo, we’ve been in an elevator with neighbours riding up/down 30 floors, listening to Trump bashing and boycotting the US. Not a nod of a greeting, no acknowledgement that there is a little human being making a silly monster face at you (too busy on Instagram and tripped over our stroller).
Sure this is a small gesture but what experience do you think my son is going to remember having lived in both countries? When we teach him acts of kindness, who’s a better example?
I love you Toronto but you are so full of hate now and I’m heartbroken.
I’m just saying… friends, please don’t make it a political thing. Or a geographic thing. I keep reading how people are ‘shocked that it happened in such a family oriented community’. That’s just naive. Because at the end, it’s really a people thing. <– This goes for guns too.
Banning weapons works in functional societies. And it clearly appears that ours is broken. So let’s address the bigger issues of mental health and a burnt out over medicated population (especially in large dense cities like Toronto). Lock up anything that is destructive but if there is a will, there is a way.
And really why do you want to see a whole country fail because of one election? Because that also means you want to see my family fail since we now live here and my husband’s business is 90% American.
So as I’m typing this in my cozy home in California, my son is at summer camp and I’m not even sure where hubs is but I hope they (and your family) are safe. Such incidents like this remind us that no one and no place is invincible. Canada AND United States. Let’s work on being kind to each other.
End rant.
