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Abbott writes Delta: We share the experience of human suffering

Growing up I was surrounded by radio and television news. My Father was a broadcaster and we were always plugged in.
Television set

Growing up I was surrounded by radio and television news. My Father was a broadcaster and we were always plugged in. I watched tragedies, man made and natural, unfold before me whether it was starving children in Biafra, bodies blown apart by bombs or civil wars in far off lands. Most of the conflicts I observed took place in third world countries.

Ingrid Writes
Kamal Edwan hospital in Beit Lahiya - Two women mourn the death of a close relative - Photo credit: AP/Fadi Adwan

In my youthful ignorance I believed that life was valued differently in non westernized countries, that it was cheap and fleeting. Life was shorter, dying young was inevitable and common. Mothers wailing into the camera grieving for their sons or daughters on the streets of the Middle East or Asia seemed far removed from the private way North Americans expressed their grief. I presumed that they were prepared, and accepted burying their dead was the price they payed for battles over religion or land. They had lost a loved one, but I felt detached from their experience, presuming they processed grief differently.

That all changed when I began traveling in my 20’s. Immersed in new cultures and meeting people in third world countries I realized just how wrong I was to make presumptions about peoples levels of suffering from my comfortable middle class WASP vantage point.

Traveling helped me understand we all share the human experience of grief and loss no matter the color of our skin, our religious beliefs or what we own. Life is never cheap, anywhere. Every life is sacred and mourned by someone. Our regard for human life is what binds us, keeps us empathetic and compassionate.

This week I watched footage of charred bodies lying in a field in Eastern Ukraine and dead children arriving at a Gaza Hospital. I read about the promising and accomplished lives of those who perished on flight MH17 and about their families shattered to the core.

Ingrid Writes
A toy is placed at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Photo credit: Associated Press Photo.

Last month it was RCMP officers killed by gunfire in a New Brunswick town that moved me to tears. Three promising University students stabbed to death at a party is still surreal, and an Alberta family is somewhere waiting to be brought home.

As the internet provides us with increasingly graphic details of the most personal and allows us in to some of the most intimate of places, how do we make sense of it all? I can’t solve the conflict in Israel, or apprehend a mentally ill person before he commits a terrible crime. I have no control over the inevitable.

Thankfully it is the private empathetic experience that we can lean on when these distant tragedies unfold before us. Being awake and present to the suffering of others, even though it is not our fight, provides comfort for me and helps me process unexplainable tragedy.

Observer is the only role I play in the misfortune of others unfolding in far flung parts of the world and Canada, but it is relevant nonetheless. Turning away because it is uncomfortable does nothing to nurture our responsibility to connect with others, nor does it foster an awareness which we can draw from in our everyday lives.

Today we are lucky to be sitting comfortably in our South Delta homes, yet we understand everything can change in a heartbeat. Feeling empathy and compassion for those who suffer grounds us and prepares us for the unexpected. It is our responsibility to witness and understand the worlds suffering, keep watching, you will be better for it.

Ingrid Abbott is a freelance writer and broadcaster living in Tsawwassen. Follow her blog at abbottwrites.wordpress.com