A day in the life

There are times when my day has a theme song. More often than not it has been It’s Good News Week. Some of you know the song, the rest of you can Google it. Most of us have music in our heads. Youngest COM calls it ear worms. When the story of Cpl Nathan Cirillo’s shooting hit the airwaves, LOML was out for an early morning run, and I was enjoying a cup of coffee while reading a newspaper in our room at a resort in B.C. That morning, I didn’t have that particular song in my ear. My biggest concern was whether we’d hit the hot springs before or after breakfast. If there’s a soothing, peaceful song for that type of moment, it may have been playing in my head. But as the stock quotations and guess-timations of border crossing times rolled along beneath the live newsfeed, it was difficult for me to comprehend the gravity of the situation in Ottawa. The time difference between Ontario and B.C. didn’t help. Personally, I’m not a very good “time traveller” and it took a couple of minutes for the thought to hit me that this really was a Canadian news story in progress. The grim-faced Seattle newsreader paused for a commercial break and a pretty face barely had time to to tell me how I could erase fine lines when I clicked over to CTV news. As my coffee grew cold and the complimentary Globe and Mail was pushed aside, I watched and thought, “What the H E Double barrelled hell is going on out there?” Then the song struck.

A Canadian military honour guard was shot. A gunman was in the Centre Block. Many shots were fired. Ottawa ground to a halt. Surely this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in polite Canada. Yet only a few days earlier, WO Patrice Vincent lost his life in a deliberate hit-andrun in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu near Montreal. My ear worm was on replay. And after the initial shock of the shooting squeezed into my mind, I thought of our daughters and feared for their saftety. LOML returned from his rainy, overcast run and, together, we fretted over the story unfolding. I asked LOML if he had a tune in his head. Until he heard the news, it had been, “I get the news I need on the weather report”, a line from The Only Living Boy in New York. Runners are like that. However somewhere in those moments a text message chimed in from MCOM (military child of mine). “We’re fine. The bases have been locked-down. Will call when we can. Don’t wear your Army cap in public, Mom. xo”

Yep, if there’s one way to put a parent’s mind at ease, those are the words that will do it. “We’re fine.” Logic told me they were fine, but with two horrific incidents in as many days, how could we be sure? Our girls might as well be light years away from us. LOML and I could never get to them fast enough if they needed us—one at CFB Shiloh and the other at CFB Borden. Both strong, capable women but still our children. LOML and I talked about the parents of the victims and of the aggressors. Lives lost. Families broken. Trust shaken. In the hours and days that have followed those brutal, senseless murders I, like many of you, have read and heard hundreds of opinions. Opinions about the motives; how to deal with the perpetrators; how to protect the public and how to prevent another tragedy. Some opinions are thoughtful. Some opinions are jaw-droppingly stupid and some are as brutal and as intimidating as the attacks were. It is the touching outpourings of sympathy, the prayers, the heart-swelling patriotism and the love that give me hope.

Listening to Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca