Community and the mob

This week has been a tough week. As a result this is a long post. However, it was also a week with a lot of new experiences and tons of learning.
My son’s best friend, a young man who is like a son to me, a good natured, helpful and caring 17-year-old teenager was dealt a card at his young age, a card all of us fear, one that would cause each of us nightmares.
When he reached the crest of a hill on a deserted country road while driving his 7-year old brother to school, he suddenly was confronted with a school bus a short distance down the other side of the hill, a bus that had stopped to pick up some young kids for a new day at school. Winter here in the Chinook region tends to melt the snow at some periods, turning it into ice at night. That morning a fresh layer of snow was falling on the ice underneath turning the road into the perfect tobogganing ground, but an impossible condition to stop a car at such short distance for such unexpected circumstances.
When the young driver hit his brakes, his vehicle went into a long slide. He saw the children on the side of the road waiting for the bus driver to give them permission to cross the road. As his vehicle was going to collide into the back of the bus, he thought he could make it in between the bus and the children and avoid hurting anyone. And so he steered his vehicle next to the bus while honking his horn to warn the children and the bus driver. As the brakes blocked the wheels the continuous friction on the tires was reducing the vehicle’s speed, but it wasn’t enough to come to a stand still before reaching the children. By that time two of the three children had made it to the bus but the third had stayed behind on the driveway and when he was about to cross the road, the side of the sliding car hit the 7-year-old boy before it came to a full stop in the ditch a short distance past the bus. While his 7-year-old brother confirmed he was OK, the young teenager jumped out of the car, wrapped the young child (same age as his own brother), who had fallen into the ditch upon contact with the car, in his coat and carried him into the bus. At first it looked like the boy was going to be fine as there was no blood and the vehicle had almost come to a stand still upon impact. But then the little boy started to cough. By then, the father had appeared on the scene. He tried to perform CPR, but despite all prayers and efforts, the young boy passed away. At that moment the lives of all those involved and affected changed forever.
I’ve had a similar loss years ago and know how the hearts of the family members of the 7-year-old are bleeding. My prayers are with them, they will need all the strength and support they can get, not just over the next few days, but over the next weeks, months and years. However, I hadn’t experienced the other side of such tragedy from such close proximity. When such a senseless event destroys lives, lives as they had existed until that day of not one, but of two families (actually I should say three as the bus driver must have been banged up as well), there is heartfelt pain in the hearts of all the involved family members and their extended communities.
Over the days that followed I observed the best and the worst of human nature.
The community came together in support of the family that lost a 7-year old child ready to explore life, but also for a 17-year old young man who had to carry the unimaginable load of having taken that life while attempting to prevent harm to anyone. The community school became a point of coordination for gifts and support for the grieving family. The school children were counseled and told how their fellow school friend had gone to heaven. But those same children, some of which were on that very bus on that tragic morning, inquired about the well being of the teenage driver, who had been a student in the same school just a few years ago. The teachers and the principle mourned and prayed for both. Community members visited the families of both the 7-year-old child who lost his life and the 17-year-old driver. They brought food and heartfelt love and care in an attempt to ease the pain of this tragic event. Both mothers sobbed heartbroken. The father of the death child expressed that he was not blaming the teenager and shared how he remembered being a teen too. The father of the teenager mourned about the loss of life of a child as old as his own son, a child whose parents he knew, a child he was coaching in hockey. And there was off course the teenager, grief stricken unable to breathe and understand why he was not the one who had died that morning.
But as the community was surrounding those who were hurt with care and support, the vultures arrived as well. Armed with cameras and microphones they came attracted by the smell of blood, a smell their crowd feeds on, just like the spectators at Rome’s coliseum two-thousand years ago. Their main purpose off course was not to report the facts, when do we ever see facts these days in the news, nor was it to report on the story of how a community pulled together in a time of tragedy. Their only interest was to find out who they could blame, crucify, feed to the mob which was eagerly waiting, ready, stones in hand, impatient to cast their judgment. Who cared that the police investigation wasn’t finished and would take days due a number of unclear variables that had been in play that very morning. Who cares about thorough investigation and legal process these days, the mob wanted blood; know where to cast their stones.
And this one was obvious; there was a teenage driver involved. Teenagers the embarrassment of society, the villains—or so we treat them all too often—instead of the young adults they are in search of identity, trying to carve out their space in an ever more confused world. Why is it we forget so fast how important those years were for every one of us? And that morning though, it wouldn’t have mattered, anyone of us who would have reached the top of that hill at that very moment would have been in dire straits.
In their desperate search for blood, the media skillfully put together a horrifying story and that night presented the mob with what they were waiting for: a teenager who ignored school bus safety regulations, tried to speed past a bus that was picking up some young innocent children and brutally killed one of them. The mob, eager and content with the bone they were thrown, jumped on it, filling in the blanks about how the mindless teenager had been in a hurry, trailing the bus at close distance, inconsiderately sped by it when it stopped and didn’t even attempt to slow down when he saw the children in the middle of the road. Stones were flying, stupid teenagers, never caring about the world around them, and most certainly this teenager, killing a 7-year-old, he had to hang. And in cyberspace the mob eagerly went on doing just that, despite attempts of community members to ease the emotions and bring a sense of perspective and facts to the mob’s attention. Now I know from whom our children learn to bully in cyberspace.
I have seen the best and the worst of humanity this week. I know who belongs to the caring community but I’m not sure who belongs to the mob. (Forgot to tell that, the mob hides behind pseudo names in cyberspace—cowards!).
The experience has raised many questions in my mind? What makes people so heartless, unable to show any sign of empathy, unable to imagine how life might deal them such a card in the future, unable to acknowledge that life is rarely that black and white, unable to recognize the possibility of an unfortunate story leading to a tragic event. Why, in our culture, do we always have to be able to cast blame, point a finger and judge someone, instead of reaching out, providing support, and caring about one another, despite our mistakes. Is such judgment necessary for us to learn, or is it simply because as long as we are casting stones, we don’t have to look at our own lives and actions, and learn from those? Or is it because when communities become too big, like in our cities, they break down and become a mob? I wonder if smaller communities are more forgiving, more caring, for the simple reason that people know each other and will continue living together. Is it cities that make our hearts cold, just as the concrete that surrounds them? Are cities places where people are unable to care for their neighbor, places that smolder our ability for empathy, places where we have to fend for ourselves and where we learn to distract attention from our own person by pointing to and crucifying someone else? Or is it simply the further we are distanced from the events the harsher our judgment becomes? Are the same people who are caring members of their community on one day, ready to join the mob the next day to condemn another human being they don’t know.
I don’t have any answers to the above questions, but think of this: How would you feel when it is your turn? How would you feel when the mob surrounds you ready to cast its stones? Would you like them to listen to your story, wait for the results of the investigations before casting their stones? Would you like them to feel your pain, your agony and your despair because you can’t turn back time?
How will you feel when it is you turn?
This week, I have seen the best and worst of human nature. This week, I have experienced humanity’s light and shadow side. May more choose to spread their light!