Over the last couple of days, I’ve spent a lot of time in my car. Taking my eldest son back to University required a 5 hour car trip (well, the first leg was closer to 6 ½ with construction and traffic) with him – and another one back alone.
I really like long car trips with my kids. They’re great times to delve into the “deeper” conversations that teenagers do NOT want to have when you can make eye-to-eye contact. On this trip, we talked about his summer camp job, his aspirations to move up further in the camp management ladder, and his hopes of landing a part –time job in Ottawa during the school year.
Photo credit: Reuters
We talked politics, with me impressing on him the importance of voting in his first-ever federal election this fall. We traded notes on interesting people we follow on Twitter. And we talked about the photo that seemed to be all over social media, and on the cover of just about every newspaper that morning, of the Syrian toddler, drowned in the Mediterranean, in an attempt to flee to a better life.
We settled my son into his apartment – he’s sharing a tiny place with a few other students – and then I handed over to a couple of big box store what felt like all my money to fill their fridge and cupboards and set them up with cleaning supplies and other household necessities. And then suddenly, it was clearly was time for me to go and to let him “take charge” of his new grown-up life.
So I hit the road again this morning. The solo drive home gives me lots of time to think. Last year, it was a tearful drive as I left my son for his first year away. This year, I left with a smile, knowing he was back at his university home. But that smile soon faded as I started to compare our privileged life with some of the horrific stories that have been in the news recently.
I kept coming back to that photo – one that seems to have brought the issues in Syria to the forefront of our minds in a way no other has yet done. Many think it has the power to galvanize, much the way the iconic napalm girl photo did. That one, taken by AP Photographer Nick Ut in 1972 of 9-year-old Kim Phuc, changed the way we thought about the Vietnam War.
I can’t imagine the horror this Syrian family was facing that drove them to believe that this journey would be better for them than staying. I have an equally difficult time imagining how many more families are facing the same thing. As global citizens, we need to do better. A few countries have taken in huge numbers of Syrian refugees, but they are struggling. Many other governments need to do much, much better. Our policies and procedures around refugees need to be better. Canada has stepped up in the past and there’s a growing sentiment we need to do so now. I can’t do much about that, but still, I’m left with the feeling of needing to do something.
I arrived home to my other two children and promptly headed back out the door with them to do their back-to-school shopping. New backpacks, pencils, notebooks and calculators were just some of the things on the list. Again, I again realized how lucky we are to be fortunate enough to argue over which binders to buy and which brand is best. We don’t have to worry about where our next meal comes from, or if there will be a school to go to next week. We are free to debate which party should win the next election. Our papers are free to criticize any and all viewpoints.
So we talked about those things over dinner and about the luxury of living in a “boring” country.
A friend recently pointed out an image to Facebook about how fortunate we are to live in Canada. I think we take it for granted to often. I’ve signed an Amnesty International petition urging Canada’s Prime Minister – and the other federal leaders – to step up. And, along with emptying my wallet for food, cleaning supplies and for coloured pencils and highlighters, I also emptied it tonight for the children of Syria. There are lots of organizations doing the best they can to help out in this crisis – I chose UNICEF. Who will you choose?
