The Pain and Loss in Portapique, N.S

 I feel an overwhelming need to scream in anger and frustration. I want to raise my fist and rail against a world that allows one person to end the lives of 20 people and to disrupt the lives of so many more. I want there to be a way that we can eradicate from our memories this individual's name, his history, his being. I want there to be some way to celebrate the lives of those who have passed, without remembering the cause. The perpetrator of these events has lost any right to be remembered at all. We will give him no false fame - no annual remembering of the deeds.

I, along with millions of Canadians are sadder today than we were yesterday. Not only have people been senselessly murdered and countless others impacted, not only have whole communities been shattered but there has been an impossible-to-imagine number of opportunities lost. But, almost as important, we as a nation have lost just a little bit more of our innocence We so desperately want to, need to believe that we are better than this. That our culture and our way of life prevents these irrational and unfathomable obscenities from happening. Perhaps we need to hang on to those beliefs. Perhaps we need to work just a little bit harder to make the country the place we think it is.

There is nothing to say, no words to express my sadness, no deed that I can do that would make the world even the tiniest bit better for those who live in the relatively narrow stretch of land between the village of Portapique and Halifax, nearly a 100 kilometres away. There is no memorial that I could create that would adequately memorialize those who have died.

There is nothing anyone can do except to try harder to make our Canada a place where this cannot happen again.

Observations From Just Outside the Pandemic #11

I am, I must confess, just a little bit nervous when I hear or read about the possibility that some of the COVID-19 restrictions/limitations will be reduced or even done away with. I understand that for some, these limitations have been almost impossible to live with, that individuals and families have suffered real hardships during the month or so of reduced social contact. For families that have mortgages, car payments and student loans to pay off, the anxiety as to how they could financially survive must have been almost all-consuming. I am not at all sure if a sudden reduction of limitations will do much to ease their worries. It will help but it might take months before the economy will get back to anything like normal.

It is much easier for people like me to argue that the restrictions around personal contact and travel should be maintained for a bit longer. I have lost very little in the last few weeks. I go out a lot less than normal, I miss my 7-8 hours a week of volunteer time and I would much prefer to go shopping every 4-5 days rather than once every two weeks. But I have talked to my neighbours more than I ever have, I have spoken on the phone more than normal and I have seen my son more frequently than in other months. My pension cheque comes in like clockwork; I have not bothered to look at my few investments - there seems no point. Other than not buying a new bicycle, I have not lacked for anything. The one area that has impacted me the most - the closure of farmers' markets for craftspeople, is a concern in terms of income and in finding other ways of dealing with my being a bit of a work alcoholic. But that too is quite manageable.  

Yesterday, a neighbour argued that on Vancouver Island - all of the restrictions are unnecessary as there are only (relatively) a small number of people who have developed the disease. He was right, there have been only 94 confirmed cases (58 recovered), three deaths and as of the last report - no new cases this weekend. It sounds very positive and on the surface of it - life should get back to normal as soon as possible. But.....

It has been suggested by public health officials and others with expertise in community disease management, that if places like BC have managed to "flatten" the curve avoiding hospital over-crowding and the depletion of resources, it is because we have been successful at limiting the spread of the virus. There is no cure, there is nothing that we can do to stop it spreading except to not inhale/ingest the contaminated breath of other people. It is true that the risk of becoming infected on Vancouver Island during the course of daily events is extremely unlikely. It is even less likely for those of us who live north of the Malahat.  However, for those of us who have compromised lungs or hearts - we need to remain vigilant. Sounding rather selfish - as much as I want people working and investing in their lives, as much as I want my grandchildren to be able to play with their friends and get back to school - I do not want to get sick because we all relaxed too soon.

I would be far more comfortable with restrictions being reduced if someone could guarantee that no one would visit the island or that no one from the island would visit anywhere else and then comeback.

Stop the ferries and close the airports. Vancouver Island could be COVID-19 free in a few weeks. But we can't do that, nor can we assume that people will be careful, that all people will continue to limit contact, wash hands and to monitor their health perhaps more closely than normal.

I can trust myself to be careful - but as much as it saddens me to say so - I am not sure if I can trust someone else, someone who I have never met, someone who may not look or feel sick, but someone who might be spreading, inadvertently, the virus to me or those I care about.