Apparently, the first step in forgiving others is to “Be honest with yourself about your anger and hurt, and assess the full damage the injustice has caused in your life.”
This is the very first step that I need to take on what may be a long road. Here is my list of people and others that I need to forgive.
Friends
Yesterday I was worried that I’d never be able to forgive the friends who forgot I existed and went about their lives as if nothing terrible was happening to me. It is hard to look them in the eye now, when we finally do go snowshoeing or out for a walk.
Co-Workers
The people I used to work with – who knew of my life and the larger events within it – also “abandoned” me when I needed them. I wonder if one of them had written a letter of support for me, if that might have made a difference at all? I sense their guilt when they text, yet I cannot answer them. What could I possibly say that would be honest? I’ve been fired while they stood by and did nothing.
Society – social media, mainstream media, my government, even the Prime Minister – has treated me very badly.
Social Media “Friends”
On social media I was attacked as “selfish” by people who barely knew me. What was far worse was when friends piled on in the most hurtful way. I was so grateful when someone did stand up for me. Like someone stepping in front of you when the whole town is throwing rocks at you over some fabricated charge.
Finally I left all social media as I spent way too much time trying to defend myself, in tears over another former friend slagging me, or composing replies in my head at 2AM. Here is my post in defense of the accusation of selfishness that has so often been hurled at me during this pandemic: Who Is Really Selfish Here?
Mainstream Media
The mainstream media has been a source of soul-destroying government propaganda and one-sided opinion. For two years the media has beaten up on unvaccinated people with articles like this one from Global: 70% Canadians Support Dismissal of Employees who Refuse Covid-19 Vaccines: Poll
Or this one, where Global gleefully explains how best to exclude unvaccinated relatives from your Thanksgiving dinners. And another from CTV News sharing the new rules Public Health put out not to have anyone unvaccinated over at Christmas. We were to remain completely alone and punished during the season of hope and love. I wonder what Jesus would say to this?!
MacLean’s gets their digs in, here: Should We Tax the Unvaccinated?
And from the Atlantic a report that there is little to no sympathy for anyone who is unvaccinated and dies of Covid.
Local Media
I used to subscribe to the local paper and support a news outlet with a small fee every month. I have cancelled both and will not support mainstream media ever again in my lifetime (except through taxes, ug). Unbiased reporting and journalistic integrity are already dead. I have written a piece in response to another article which was so slanted and so hurtful, I couldn’t let it go: Media Propaganda is Just Bad News
The Prime Minister of Canada
Most of the time, I suffer in silence, hoping that our leaders will soon see reason. But over and over the horrible treatment and name-calling of those of us who just want to make their own bodily decisions continues. Our country appears to be run by a bunch of insular, entitled people.
Our fearful leader, Trudeau, has called me and other people who want our freedom from draconian mandates: “…‘racist’ and ‘misogynists’ — despite coming under fire in the past for his treatment of women in his cabinet and, as a younger man, appearing in blackface…Trudeau called convoy participants a ‘small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa … holding unacceptable views…’ “ – Toronto Sun
Parents
Articles in the mainstream media and attitudes like the one from our elected “leaders” go a long way to explain the reaction of my parents. My Mom especially has made it very clear that they do not want to see me as long as I remain unvaccinated. Oddly, while she refuses to see me, she is also terrified that I’m going to die. She sent me an article from a newspaper about a woman in her 30s who had died of Covid. It did no good to try to explain that the woman was on very strong immunosuppressants as she’d had a kidney transplant a few years before.
Whether I die or not, the result is the same – I will not be seeing my parents anytime soon.
Local Media
My social isolation is celebrated by the local media, which delights in publishing letters from neighbours demanding the unvaccinated be excluded from every venue, every event, denied hospital care, and banned from society altogether. This despite the admission from Patty Daly from Vancouver Coastal Public Health that vaccination mandates did not stop the spread of Covid but are used as an “incentive” to get people to take a vaccine. It’s not a question of spreading Covid at all – just a question of punishment.
Arts & Cultural Groups
I am even harbouring a grudge against local cultural groups like our small theatre group or art gallery, who won’t even allow their own few employees remain unvaccinated and the symphony – will they expect me to buy season’s tickets again? What about the volunteer work I did for the local emergency program that forbid me from volunteering – will they call me up and say they need me now? Will the city suddenly expect us to attend hockey games? Join the curling club? Will Rotary dare ask us to volunteer at one of their (many) fundraisers in the future?
Will we even want to? After the way we were dumped / shamed / ridiculed / ostracized?
Employers
Then there is work. Looking on the job board, as I do nearly every day, there are many, many employers who have bought into the “mandate as punishment” rhetoric. How many helpful, efficient, and friendly workers have they lost over their hardline assholism? How many will they lose in the future? I won’t ever work for an employer who tossed good people out. No provincial, federal, or municipal employer. I never gave a moment’s trouble to any employer before this and, unlike some of my co-workers, was always ready to help out, with a big smile. To remove that smile from my face takes some doing. I am going to work where the people seem to like their jobs and the atmosphere is healthy. I’ll miss the pay but no way is my bodily autonomy for sale – at any price.
Public Health
I keep expecting to get a phone call from Public Health asking if they can use me as a “control group” in the giant vaccination experiment they’ve got going on. Maybe I’ll even get a stipend to help pay the bills. They, too, have been absolutely nasty to me over the past year. I never did trust them much but I had not realized they would outright lie. On May 25, 2021, Bonnie Henry, BC Provincial Health Officer, said there would be no mandatory vaccine passport in BC because “…the pandemic has already exacerbated inequities in our society”. On September 13, 2021, she implemented it anyway. Since she already knew this would exacerbate inequities in society, her culpability is all the more deplorable.
How could I ever trust the public health system again after they implemented a policy so hurtful to me? That they cared nothing for my social isolation or mental state goes without saying. What is the most foul is that it ended up costing me the ability to make a living.
Do I feel punished enough yet?
People in Ottawa
Then there is the complete annihilation of the truckers in the Freedom Convoy 2022. They are the only group that has actually gone to Ottawa to stand up for my rights as a human being in this country. Of course I support them! What you do to them, you do to me. (To support them financially is no easy thing as the government has had their former fundraising removed. They are now on https://www.givesendgo.com/)
The people of Ottawa are the lucky few who suckle from the teat of the government. Insulated in their world, they forget that it is ordinary people like me – like the truckers – who pay their wages. Their arrogance and contemptful disdain for those of us who do not share in their good fortune will not soon be forgotten. Trudeau’s lack of leadership will go down in history as an epic failure.
And Me
What happens when all this pandemic paranoia and punishment is over? Will everyone just carry on and assume things are absolutely fine between us? What about all the name-calling and shaming – will there be any apology forthcoming from any Canadian leader for the despicable way I’ve been treated? Will the public remember that they blamed me for the whole pandemic and treated me as if I was personally responsible for it? Will co-workers and friends forget that they threw me under the bus at work or gloated with each other over a beer in a local pub while I sat at home crying and alone?
I guess the bigger question is: will I?
Honestly, I hope I can be strong enough, Bapu.
“Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”
Mahatma Gandhi
