Doing What We Can, All That We Can, While We Can.

I’ve been troubled of late; life can do that. Some things will never reach my blog page, but others will, such as the needless death of a fourteen-year-old high school student in Hamilton.

Confrontation over a stolen bike, messages and threats over social media, and weeks-long bullying ended with the death of Devan Bracci-Selvey. Stabbed in the back by another fourteen-year-old on a street behind his school, he was held in his mother’s arms as she waited for the ambulance. Devan died in the hospital.

Devan’s death is the second teen this year to die at the hands of his peers. In April, seventeen-year-old Abdalla Hassan was found shot in the back of the head inside his family’s car that crashed down a densely wooded embankment in Dundas, Ontario. Three teen aged boys (two sixteen and one fifteen) are charged with first-degree murder.

Det. Sgt. Steve Bereziuk, the major crime unit case manager for both Devan’s and Abdalla’s cases had this to say about the deaths: “These two murders this year have involved youth with complete and utter disregard for human life … and that is just shocking to me.”

“Complete and utter disregard for human life…” how terrifying a statement is that! I am left wondering if this shocking and needless loss of life is indicative of the direction our society is headed. Sadly, our youth are learning at a very young age that life has no value in the womb nor at the other end of the life spectrum. Abortion and assisted suicide have become commonplace words.

The question on the table regarding the death of Devan is, Was bullying directly linked to his murder? Many believe it was. The authorities are still investigating.

Bullying is defined as “seeking to harm, intimidate, or to coerce someone perceived as vulnerable.” As a child growing up in the heart of Toronto, I have no recollection of such aggressive and harmful actions. Of course we pushed, we shoved, we tripped, but most of the time it was done in fun and we’d laugh about it. Occasionally someone would get hurt, but it was never intentional. We seldom got mad, and if we did, it didn’t last.

But, admittedly, life was not perfect. After all we were kids. Sometimes someone would taunt someone else about their religion, or nationality, or how they dressed, or the house they lived in. Sometimes Carole would be tormented because she wore braces on her teeth and was overweight. Gail’s family changed their last name because of the teasing she suffered. But never would the tormenting have been carried to the extreme we have seen over the past few decades. Never! There was an unspoken bond: we were friends! We never gave a thought that someone might be carrying a gun or knife to school, and never did our school experience a lock down. Never did we fear for our lives.

Two of my friends in grade school were Sharon and Shelly. Of course, I had lots of other friends, but for some reason, I was especially drawn to them. After all, I’d known them since kindergarten. I suppose in some ways I envied them. They were popular. I was shy. They came from affluent families. My dad was a blue-collar worker and drove a truck. Both lived in big houses a block or two from the school. I lived in a semi detached house, a fifteen-minute walk to and from school. Sharon and Shelly never came to my house. It was never a consideration. Although I did feel a bit left out when they spent time with each other at their respective homes, I believed we were the best of friends. I was wrong.

One day Shelly invited me and Sharon to her house after school and I was elated! “Wow,” I thought, “she included me!” She explained that she wanted to take a closer look at my home economics assignment that was due the next day. She had admired it at school and praised me for doing such a good job. So off I went to Shelly’s house on cloud nine. Little did I know that both my thought-to-be friends had an ulterior motive behind the invitation.

Shelly’s mom was a stay-at-home mom, as was Sharon’s. Mine was not; life circumstances forced my mother to work out of the home. Shelly’s mom was a great cook. Mine was tired at the end of a day and we ate simply. We were fortunate if we got a ginger cake on Sundays. On the day in question, Shelly’s home smelled simply delicious; her mother had just finished a batch of cookies, the like of which I had never seen nor tasted before. Shelly suggested I go into the kitchen and help myself and, again, I was thrilled,  thinking her kindness was based on how she viewed me as a friend.

With milk in one hand and cookie in the other, I returned to the living room to find Shelly and Sharon standing over my now-trashed home economics assignment, laughing. I clearly remember standing there looking at the floor and the torn pages and then back at their faces, startled for sure, but confused, thinking, friends don’t do that.

As a ten-year old, I felt shame and guilt. Don’t ask me why! I was just a kid and I felt I deserved the treatment given to me. I set my milk and cookie on the table, bent down to pick up the pieces of my now dysfunctional work, and mumbled that I didn’t mind, that I needed to redo it anyway. I almost thanked them. I gathered my things and left and waited until I was out of their sight before I started crying. I never went back to Shelly’s home, but then again, I was never invited. I moved away at the beginning of Grade 8. I never saw Shelly again and only once saw Sharon, who had become a very successful entertainer.

A childhood memory. Was it bullying? Compared to what is happening in schools today, the childhood prank would be considered just that, a prank. Some would put it down to immature behaviour, harmless and innocent.  I’m not so sure.

On the BullyingCanada webside, the following introductory comments read this way: The longer a child is bullied, the more likely they are to develop physical, emotional, and psychological scars that can last a lifetime. Bullying can be devastating, leaving children withdrawn, shy, and insecure. (https://www.bullyingcanada.ca/)

I am not scarred, shy or insecure by how I was treated by Shelly and Sharon, but it is part of my childhood that I’d rather not have had. If nothing else, as a ten-year-old, I quickly learned how not to treat others.

The stopbullying.gov website, states that there are three types of bullying:
• Physical: Hitting, kicking, spitting, tripping, pushing, breaking someone’s things, rude gestures
• Verbal: Teasing, name-calling, threats, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting
• Social: Leaving someone out of a group on purpose, telling others not to be friends with them, publicly embarrassing them, spreading gossip or rumours about someone, etc. (https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html)

When one of my schoolmates taunted another, it was chalked up to childish behaviour. But would it be considered verbal bullying today? When Carole was ridiculed for the way she looked or  Gail for her last name, would it be considered social bulling today? My trashed school assignment may have fallen under the physical type of bullying, but once again, by today’s standards of what bullying has become, it was just a mean, childish prank. Or was it?

I encourage you to search out the above-mentioned web sites and learn what can be done to put a stop to the senseless waste of life. Both Devan and Abdalla deserved to live. We owe it to them to do what we can, all that we can, while we can.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Luke 6:31

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,
but only such as is good for building up,
as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Ephesians 4:29