What a bleak time we are living through. There are so many layers of despair all around us. As I have written previously, I have been dealing with the loss of my parents. Mom's illness and death occurred in the early stages of the pandemic - a word that I had not paid attention to, before we were in the middle of one. We have all suffered, in unforeseen ways, over these past two years.
Just as we were emerging from this dark period, Ottawa and many parts of Canada were subjected to the occupation of our city and other vital areas. Having to witness the selfish behaviour of the occupiers was a rude introduction to this section of Canadian society.
Just when we finally got our city back, Russia invaded Ukraine, plunging us all into another dark hole. The images we are now seeing are unbelievable. It is difficult to understand how one person can be responsible for so much destruction and profound sorrow. I am grateful that my dear parents are not alive to see how the world has turned backwards.
What to do? How can we go about our days, knowing that so many are living in fear and misery? There are many agencies, working in Ukraine, looking for our donations. Our local Ukranian Church is starting to accept donations of various items to send to Ukraine so I bought a few things this afternoon. As I put some boxes of baby food pouches into my cart I was overcome with sadness, wondering who might eat them - babies, or toddlers, children or even desperate adults?
While standing in line for a cashier, I became aware of a disgruntled customer at an adjacent cash. A middle-aged man was berating a cashier because there were no No Name peanuts available in the store. He had a rain check for that brand and he was ticked off there were none available. She explained they were having trouble getting them and he went on and on, about how was he going to use his rain check! The poor cashier was extremely patient with him. When he finally left, another customer and I talked to her about his behaviour and empathized with her.
The more I thought about it, afterwards, the more I wished I had told him off, instead of waiting to speak after he left. I wish I had told him to look at the images from Ukraine and then complain, only if he had a real problem. But I didn't. That's what we do with bullies, don't we? We let them talk. We let them have their way. That's what we did in Ottawa for three weeks. We let the occupiers, those bullies, take over our city and treat our special places with complete disrespect. I'm sick and tired of bullies, like Trump and Putin.
I was in a pretty foul mood until I heard an interview on CBC radio's All In A Day with Alan Neal. He was interviewing Andrew Hon, the Associate Musical Director with the Ottawa Choral Society. On Sunday they will perform a piece called Annelies, which is a musical evocation of the diary of Anne Frank.
As I listened to Mr. Hon, it seemed he was giving me the pep talk that I needed, to keep on going, to not give in to anger and despair. Here is some of what he said about the message of Annelies:
"My hope is that, as we contemplate the words of Anne Frank, that we realize, her diary is a reminder of how the human spirit can prevail, even during the darkest of days. ...It's about the human spirit and the human condition and how we cope with isolation and adversity in life...We can still have some hope in how we live our life....I want the audience to walk out of the concert hall, feeling inspired with how to treat people....We are so capable of hurting each other, especially people who are different.....We are also capable of loving and caring for each other. That is the core message of this piece."
Thank you Andrew Hon. I needed to hear you today.
