BUT LOVE LEAVES A MEMORY NO ONE CAN STEAL

BUT LOVE LEAVES A MEMORY NO ONE CAN STEAL IF I CAN DESCRIBE HUMAN NATURE as a menagerie of thoughts and ideas, then human nature, as it has lately subsisted in me, has been much too detached from the harshness that is manifesting itself all around us. The mass shooting that occurred recently in the remote town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, resulting in the deaths of eight victims plus the perpetrator, is a prime example. It ranks as one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history, yet with literally thousands of reported shootings in the U.S. and overseas during the last ten years, the degree to which I have become desensitized is almost frightening. In an age dominated by 24-hour cable news networks and the constant sharing of violent images on all manner of social media platforms, it’s easy to simply say to oneself “How unfortunate for those people” then turn our attention quickly away, just as we turn the pages of a newspaper. There will always be yet another in a never-ending succession of unhappy events where one or more people have suffered greatly. It becomes routine to hear about them. The world witnessed an absolute barbaric attack on October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas – resulting in the killing of at least 1,219 Israeli citizens and the taking of 251 hostages. Since that time, we have watched the slow destruction of an entire region and the deaths of over 70,000 people due to the religious ideology and nationalist goals held by those same Islamic terrorists. Then there is the war in Ukraine, which escalated into a full-scale Russian invasion four years ago. That ongoing conflict is characterized by a grinding war of attrition on the ground, and the total death toll is now estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Daily images of war-torn cities are on a scale too large to fully comprehend. Added to all of this are the countless deaths due to other events such as natural disasters. In the last ten years, approximately 221,000 people have perished worldwide. This can be brought much closer to home as we think of friends and neighbours having lost their lives due to structure fires and even automobile accidents. The American writer, Madeleine L'Engle, once said “Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived.” That may well be true for everyone, but until it touches us personally – and profoundly – we carry on in a collective effort to erase much of what we see happening around us, and we forget just how precious, and vulnerable, life on this plant actually is. To that end, certain realities recently came crashing through a portion of the emotional wall which has so far been a capable protector of my overall well-being. I experienced the sudden and unexpected loss of a trusted companion – someone who needed my influence as much as I needed hers. Gradually the circumstances of my friend’s death, which at first I was totally unable to grasp, began to acquire a lasting coherence in my mind. That quality of formulating a unified whole has manifested itself in several ways, not least of which is my sudden concern for everyone who has lost anyone – whether in war, sickness, or that inescapable reality, old age. On my most recent Facebook news feed since the Tumbler Ridge tragedy in B.C. was an image of one of the parents of a 12-year old shooting victim holding a framed photograph of her daughter. The look on the mother’s face made its way straight through my pupils and into that part of my brain where compassion is stored. I can only imagine how awful the loss of a child so young could actually be. Then I realized the same must be said for the family in Ukraine whose child was the victim of a Russian drone attack, or the parents of someone killed by a collapsing building in Gaza. My own recent experience has turned these unfortunate victims of war into actual human beings – far from being seen as just another in a series of statistics from far-away nations over conflicts I have no ability to change. Nevertheless, there is a flip-side to all of this. As a man of faith, it gives me great discomfort to say there are many people in this world of today who simply do not deserve to live, and whose lives should be taken away from them. That’s a direct contradiction from accepting that we are all God’s creation, and that to wantonly take a life is in fact a sin, but the concept of evil exists throughout humanity, whether you believe in a higher power or not. Each of us has the ability to make hard choices – either for the benefit of mankind or for something sinister, often resulting in the deaths of innocent people. We all know who the worst among us are, and they usually carry guns. Our planet has long since become a series of armed camps, and there will be a great deal more deaths among us in the days, years, and even generations to come. Whether it is the loss of someone special in peacetime or in the agony of war, the following words written by British author Vera Brittain are timeless: I hear your voice in the whispering trees, I see your footprints on each grassy track, Your laughter echoes gaily down the breeze But you will not be coming back. The twilight skies are tender with your smile, The stars look down with eyes for which I yearn, I dream that you are with me all the while But you will not return. The flowers are gay in gardens that you knew, The woods you loved are sweet with summer rain, The fields you trod are empty now – but you Will never come again.